Ethan's hot tub

The first thing he wanted to do when he saw the cauldron was climb in and sit in it!

And then put plastic spiders in his hair.

Happy Halloween!

I think Christmas is going to be interesting this year...

...now that putting things "out of reach" is near impossible.



And it not just Ethan....

Or Beau. Bailey was waiting under the table to get in on the action.The two of them have been enjoying "ornament hockey". And the little boy? He is entranced with the decorations. Half the decorations get dismantled before Garrett gets home and then I put them back up in the evening so that we can enjoy them. Still its fun to see his excitement as he explores the seasonal changes in his environment. :-)

Little village depot

Friday we met up with a friend from playgroup out at the village little houses.

Ethan hadn't been there yet, but he was soooo excited!

He talked up a storm, ran around, and was over the moon excited over the child sized playhouses and all the kids running around.
 

While we were there he became quite attached to one of the Dad's because he had neat shoes. He followed that poor guy everywhere pointing at his shoes and gibber jabbering away about them. Then he would look up at the guy and give him the cheesecake grin. It got to where it was a little embarrassing because Ethan was so interested in him.

Playing at the "bank".

Later on when Garrett asked how it was possible for me to get to know my playgroup mom friends since our kids are all so mobile I told him about our run by discussions. He thought it was funny and a little novel that we women can talk and carry on a conversation while not maintaining constant eye contact (since we are keeping our eyes on our kids) and that we could pick back up five minutes later right were we left off after having to go stop/rescue/admonish a child for x/y/z. It's the daily norm for me so I was a little tickled over his amazement. He recently witnessed a playgroup Halloween party and was floored over the sheer busyness of the children and how hard it is to socialize with other parents while minding your child.

I'm so thankful that as mom's we have evolved to where we can multi-task to that level! It would be pretty lonely if we couldn't connect with each other. And I'm sure that one day we will be able to hold real normal adult conversations again. But for now I'm thankful for the unwritten mom code that makes run by snatches of conversation socially excusable. :-)

We couldn't have asked for better weather, better company or a better day!

Boo!

{Cookies for playgroup Halloween Party}

Doing his part...

... to save the planet.

Everytime we go to the playground his first order of business is picking up trash. I don't mind picking up trash I see but it wiggs me out that he touches it and I'd prefer he didn't. We keep taking it from him and putting it in the trash can and he keeps on picking it up. Once the trash is gone he is happy to play! I thought it was funny that this was the only playground picture I got of him that day. Sums up our trip though! We love this playground, I just wish it wasn't so dirty!

Marble Maze

I wanted to make a quiet activity that I could easily take with me to entertain Ethan (other than the small car and board book that I already stuff in our bag). However, I wanted needed to do it on the cheap so I dug through my small sewing basket for fabric remnants and assorted appliques for inspiration. I had the appliques on hand and when I saw them I knew I wanted to use them to delineate the "start" and "finish". Since I only own four spools of thread (pink, red, black, and white) I opted to go with contrasting thread so that the maze would be visible to the eye as well as to touch. I didn't have any marbles so I bought a sack for $1 at Dollar General.



I sewed a border around the maze so that there would be two sets of seams holding the marble inside the maze. Probably wasn't necessary but marbles aren't exactly approved toddler toys and I wanted to make extra sure that it was safe.

Front and Back. "Easy" mode photo on the left and "difficult" mode photo on the right.



It was so easy and I love the way it turned out! It actually looks much better than the way I had envisioned it. I washed and cut the fabric the night before but the rest of the project was completed all in the space of Ethan's afternoon nap. The design was loosely figured out when I started but evolved as I worked on it. Now I can't wait to make a few more. I already have some new designs planned out.


Inspiration for the maze was found on Pinterest. Here and Here.

21 Months

 

Weight: 25.4 lbs
Height: Somewhere between 33 and 34 inches. I had trouble keeping you still. :-)
Clothes: Size 18-24 month, 24 month.
Shoes: Size 5
Diapers: Size 4
Naps/sleeping: You still sleep great and go down around 7:30 pm and wake up around 7:15 am. Naps are a bit iffy. Sometimes you go down at 11:30 and sleep till 2:30 and other days you try to skip your nap or you will sleep for an hour.

 

This month you have been trying to get out of your crib. You haven't been successful but we have surrounded your crib with floor pillows just in case.

You are teething again (2 year molars) and are constantly chewing on your poor finger.

You have been a very picky eater this month. You were on a big bananas, yogurt, cereal and milk kick and then you went on a broccoli only kick. Now you only want cereal and milk. I'm afraid I've had to be firm with you and keep offering your plate to you over and over in order to get you to eat a variety of food.

You've been giving us a new silly grin these days. (teeth out)
 

You like getting out of the house. Yesterday you dragged your back pack to the door and then you grabbed me and led me to the door because you wanted to go somewhere.

You found these two treasures at the Arboretum and at the Zoo. We have nicknamed them "funky fruit" and "rattle bean" and you want to take them with you whenever we go somewhere.

When you wave "Bye bye" you wave towards yourself. Sometimes your hand is near your face and sometimes its down low but when you do it its either because we told you we were leaving or because you want to go and we haven't moved to leave yet.



On Saturday I left you with your Dad so that I could go to an event with the other photographer Mom's. You ran up to me and threw your arms around my neck. You come to me for hugs a lot but this was the first time you have ever given me a hug. It was so sweet.

You love playing/being around other kids. When we go to the playground you get super excited as soon as I open the car door and you can hear the sounds the other kids are making. You start to "talk" really loud and really fast and turn your head around looking for the other kids. When you hear another child around your age babbling then you turn to them and babble back at the top of your lungs.

You like to stop and touch all the flowers that you see. You LOVE it when we go to the Arboretum.

You have shown a lot of improvement with speech and communication this month. No new real words but you now work at imitating us when we say a word and you are getting good at using the right consonant and intonation. When we play with the See 'n Say you mimic some of the sounds. Some of the other sounds are pretty hard!

One day you fell asleep in the car while eating cereal from your snack cup. I removed the cereal so that you wouldn't drop the container. When we arrived home 15 minutes later and I went to get you out of your seat you were so sleepy that you only partially woke up and in your sleepy state you started "eating" imaginary cereal out of your imaginary container. You put your hand to your mouth and started chewing and then you repeated the movement several more times until you fell asleep again in my arms.

Every time you see a business card (we get a lot of business cards on our front door) you grab it and run straight to the entertainment center so that you can slide it under the faux mullions on the glass doors.

You love wearing hats. Especially mixing bowl "hats", your $1 fireman hat and your cowboy hat. You aren't as crazy about ball caps but you actually ask to wear bucket hats.

You have a great memory and if we show you something once you will continue to do the same things with the same item every time you see it. You also recognize foods by the packaging. There is no letting you try something "once" because if you like it (or hate it) we'll never be able to sneak it by you again!

I know I always say this, but you keep getting more and more fun little boy!

Pumpkin pickin'

Garrett and I are usually at two extremes when it comes to getting our yearly carving pumpkins. He starts wanting to buy them when they make an apperance in stores in late September while I tend towards buying them the week of Halloween (only because one year a pumpkin rotted one week after we bought it). This year I think we timed it just right. :-)

Oh no! A tan got thrown in with the whites!

And more balloons...

The next day the balloons transformed into a new kind of fun. Most of them had lost their helium and were sitting on the ground. But a few of them still had enough helium to make them hover once they were thrown in the air. Ethan quickly picked out the two "hover balloons" and focused on playing with them the entire rest of the day.

There was the crunch crunch of Kix underfoot...

... and then he started to make "Kix angels" in the mess.

I tried to play hardball with my child today. All he has wanted to eat lately is Kix cereal, bananas, and milk. All other foods have ended up on the floor (with the exception of a couple of sweet potato fries that he slowly nibbled on). So I decided he couldn't have bananas or cereal today and he could have a small sippy cup of milk otherwise he could have as much water, strawberries, beans, broccoli, corn pasta, corn, peas, cheese, sweet potatoes etc that he might want. Well, he's either tenacious or just didn't think that I understood his wishes because he grabbed a banana off the counter, tried to break into it by hitting it on the floor and then he brought it to me (and I put it back). He tried this again. He also pointed to the milk when I opened the fridge and signed "more". Later as I was packing his bag with food so that we could head out the door to playgroup he decided he would take matters into his own hands again. I was in the dining room packing his bag when he ran into the kitchen and was out of sight for a second (I figured there wasn't much he could do) when suddenly I heard an ominous scattering sound. I ran to peek into the kitchen and found him making "snow angles" in the spilled Kix cereal.


So like any good parent I grabbed the camera off the dining room table and returned to take a photo of this:

Apparently he figured since I didn't understand that he was asking for cereal, he would just get it himself. I had no idea that he could reach the full box of cereal on the counter.

Oh Ethan... I tried not to laugh but holding it in I laughed silent tears.

He saw me taking his picture so he ran over and started to put the cereal back in the box. Nice try kid. Eek! I'm pretty sure I still haven't gotten all the cereal out from under the stove, fridge, and dishwasher.

Balloons!

Last week Ethan went to a play date to celebrate the birthday of two of his friends.

First thing he did was take notice of the balloons. Wild horses could not have kept that boy away from them.

He wanted to catch them so bad that he decided he would climb up to get them.

A friend came up to say "Hi". I don't know what Ethan was telling him but I have a feeling it was all about the balloons (in Ethan's made up babble language).

Taking a break from balloons so that someone else could have a turn.

Most of the other children were content to leave the balloons alone. Ethan and one of his friends decided to make off with the balloons while the other children were eating cupcakes.

It was a beautiful day so we stayed a while at the park and we ended up being the last (other than the host) to leave. The birthday twins' Mom graciously told Ethan that he could take home the balloons.

He was enthralled and made happy noises the whole way home.

Once at home, he proceeded to play with the balloons the entire rest of the afternoon and evening.

It was a very happy day for a very happy boy.