Time is flying by

Oh goodness ... I'm very behind.

Ethan turned 1 (I still can't believe it) on August 20th. It was also Dave's 31st birthday so we had a nice little party at our house. Our closest friends and family were there and it went very well (minus the downpour of rain about half way through). Ethan is such a blessed little boy and Dave and I are truly so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives :) Thank you to everyone who came and shared our special day with us. Ethan LOVED his cake as you can tell from the picture and ate almost the entire thing... I changed blue diapers for two days... TMI...but pretty funny haha.

Ethan and I flew down to visit family (Nana, Grandpa, Aunt Laurie, Aunt Gerry, Kelsey, & Derek) in Texas over Labor Day weekend and had a blast! It was wonderful seeing family I don't get to spend time with very often. we miss them.

Ethan is 14 months old now. He loves to explore everything and he's VERY close to walking. He of course walks along things and behind his truck at home with perfect and cute precision. He'll also stand for a few seconds without holding onto anything as he's distracted by a toy in his hand...until he realizes what he's doing and either grabs back on to what he was standing next to or falls on is bum (never ceasing to examine the toy). So we're close lol... yikes! As Nana says... "Time to get out the roller skates."

We're also starting to deal with mini tantrums. Oh what fun. He gets VERY frustrated if something isn't going according to his plan (hmmm wonder where he gets that from...) Though I will say... he's even cute when he's angry :) I say that now... haha (I know parents out there are laughing "just you wait" haha).

Ethan has quite a few teeth and has many more on their way in right now...poor guy. I'm so glad that we don't remember the teething stage... it must be awful. :(

It is back to that favorite time of year again... FALL!! We've already been to the apple orchard and we're going again this weekend with the Ackermans as a first annual tradition :) In a couple weeks we will be celebrating Ethan's second Halloween. He's going to be the cutest Lion ever :) I put him in his costume periodically just because it's just so darn cute! We're not sure if we're taking him out, passing out candy (though we never have had many trick-or-treaters in the past), hanging with family or friends... but we'll see how the weather is and go from there. I'll be sure to post pictures!! His costume parade at school is on Tuesday (the 25th)!!

And in exactly 2 weeks and 3 days we will be flying to DISNEY WORLD!!! We are so pumped!!! We're praying for continued health during this cold and flu season and for travel mercies :) And I'm sure we'll have way too many pictures to share :)

Stats: 23.4lbs and 31 inches long.

11 Months

One month away from a year...that's just craziness! Ethan is getting so big and his development is whizzing by...I feel like every day he does something else to make me say... "Dave! Look ... did you see him __________". So much fun! (let me tell you... keeping him in his chair for his month pictures is nearly impossible...only one more picture to go! lol)

We're in the process of planning his low-key 1st birthday bash with immediate family and close friends :) We didn't want to do anything too over the top. Just something small and fun :) (Daddy will be 31!)

Ethan is now starting to try and stand on his own... and making huge strides in balance... he climbs the stairs no problem and when he sees something he wants (whether he's supposed to or not) he's off in a flash. Yesterday I had my first moment of "Ummm why is it so quiet... where's Ethan...? Hey...what are you doing?" haha. Many more to come I'm sure.

I think my favorite milestone from the last couple weeks is...dancing?... oh my goodness it's so darn cute. His little toys he stands up at play music and he'll stand there ... listen for a sec ...and then start to bounce up and down... and then with some embarrassing encouragement (it's amazing what you do to get your kids to laugh or dance around) from us will continue to do so and smile. SO CUTE! Love it! I look forward to our family dance parties in the living room :)

Ethan is officially off formula and bottles now. He transitioned beautifully! We're so blessed! About 3 weeks ago he stopped wanting to drink his bottles ... so I talked to his pediatrician and he said to go ahead and start whole milk. I contemplated how I was going to wean him from bottles and then decided (after doing some reading) that we were just going to take a Saturday and try cold turkey and see how he does... He did great! He loves his milk in his sippy cup. The challenge now is trasitioning myself! Bottles were a pain in the butt but that's all you had to worry about. I'm now retraining my routine to keep him hydrated with enough water and milk and make sure I'm feeding him the appropriate amount of each food group each day to make sure he's nurished properly...that's a lot to think about! It shouldn't be very hard considering the child will basically eat whatever I put in front of him... we're doing well so far :)

We love our little man so much and can't wait to celebrate our whirlwind of a year next month! :) Pictures to come!!

10.5 Months!

Here we again...posting late; sorry everyone!


Ethan is so much fun now. He's quite the speedy crawler, he's able to pull himself up to standing and kinda wobble around them and he's now officially able to crawl up the stairs. So needless to say...we're tired ha! Our house is inundated with gates which us and the dogs are starting to get used to.

He now has 4 teeth. The two on front bottom and the two front top teeth. He was a bit fussy when the top ones were coming in but that's to be expected. Now that they've joined the party he's much better :)

He absolutely loves food (still). He has refused baby food for quite some time now and pretty much eats whatever we do. His school provides breakfast and lunch so he gets all kinds of fun things to try there and loves it! I'm usually jealous of the yummy smells when I drop him off in the morning. (i.e. banana bread, french toast, etc.)

We love being able to be outside in this beautiful summer weather and are taking every advantage that we can. :) This past weekend, Ethan enjoyed his first 4th of July holiday and we had a full weekend with friends. It was a blast :) Back in June was Dave's first Father's Day with Ethan; Ethan got him a nice travel coffee mug covered in his pictures...Daddy loves it :)

We're very much looking forward to upcoming events the rest of this year... just to name a few... Ethan's First Birthday!! (wow...I can't believe it), visit to our family in Texas over Labor Day weekend and our trip to Disney World in November with friends!! Yay!

Ethan seems to be doing new things all the time now. At his 9.5 month appointment Ethan was just under 22 lbs and I'm pretty sure he's grown a lot since then... where did our little baby go?
(hopefully I didn't miss anything since I was so behind on posting this... )

9 months and then some...

My goodness I'm so behind on this blog. Sorry! I guess that's mommyhood... always playing catch-up.

Ethan is getting so big! He is now officially mobile... crawling all over the place and getting into things he shouldn't :) he's also now the 'big kid' in his classroom at school. This week the new batch of babies have started (around 9 weeks old) and I find myself saying oh wow... look how tiny! and then looking at Ethan and saying... "you be nice to the little babies today" as I'm dropping him off ... What happened!? When did he become the big boy!? It was just yesterday it seems that I was thinking "oh my that 'big kid' is awfully close to my little guy" ... goodness time flies.

No new teeth yet...but he's still drooling like crazy so I'm sure they're on the way. He still loves to scream and talk to us in his own language ("bah bah bah?")... we're working on sign language and the only one he seems to have down is "more" which is basically clapping right now...we're working on making it more like the actual sign lol but he's still working on full functuality of his little fat fingers.

Ethan loves his food that's for sure. Takes after both his parents on that end. He's starting finger foods now and we haven't really found much that he's not into. Right now his favorite things are puffs...he'd probably eat the whole can if we let him (which we don't).

We have our family vacation to Disney planned in November and we can't wait! It's going to be so much fun seeing him take everything in. more on that to come! :)

8 months old!!

Let's update this blog... geeze...

Okay... we're about 8 months and 2 weeks right now! Ethan is getting closer and closer to crawling... I'm predicting within the next couple of weeks for sure. He's up on all fours and is able to sit up and roll over and kinda scoot to where he wants to go with some effort and grunts (lol so cute)...

He now has two of the cutest teeth you've ever seen :) He cut his first tooth (on the lower right) March 24th... his second tooth poked through April 19th (lower left). The drool and knawing on everything hasn't stopped so obviously there are more on the way :)

He's exploring his voice a lot more now... lots of "Bah Bah Bah" conversations and some screams here and there. His teacher Ms. Nicole says he sometimes startles his classmates with his banter...lol. He's doing great in school and having lots of fun with his Teacher and friends... they're so cute :)

We are so blessed Ethan is such a good boy! He barely complained about his teeth at all...that's why I was so surprised when I saw it in there... I figured there would be whining or crying or something... but no.. nothing. With the second one we did have some issues with spoon feeding.. he bit the spoon a couple of times and apparently that was quite unpleasant. But overall Ethan is such a good baby...yes I'm bragging. I know it could be much more trying so I know that I'm blessed and I think God!

We took a week long trip down to visit my Dad (Grandpa), Lady (Lady Jack) and my brother (Uncle Winston) down in Tennessee...even Uncle Cameron flew down to hang out too; it was nice. We had such a great time! And of course...you guessed it... Ethan was a trooper on the 10 + car ride down there. It was so nice to go from snowy 50 degree weather to sunny 70 degree weather :) We got to play golf and sight see and best of all spend some family time together :) It was awesome! I think one of the highlights was going to the Tennessee Aquarium...Ethan loved see all the fish and animals ... so I"m thinking the Zoo will be fun this summer!

We just celebrated our first Easter together as a family. I must say Ethan was quite cute in his little Easter outfit ... he rocked that hat!

We have some fun stuff coming up this summer and fall!! Stay tuned!!!

First Tooth!!

I know that I'm behind on posting our 7 month update ... but I just wanted to post that....

Ethan cut his FIRST tooth today!! It's so cute and little... :) And he's still been such a good boy...not crazy fussy or anything! Such a strong little man :)

7 Months Old!

I wrote this a month ago and never got around to posting it... life is crazy right now... Annnywaaays... here you go!



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Once again time has flown by. Our little guy isn't so little anymore... After going to the Dr.'s today he's 90th percentile for length and 50th percentile for weight. At 4 months he was 90th and 95th percentile so he's thinning out.


This month has been fun. We went and got his 6 month pictures done and they turned out great. He's such a little ham :)


He now sits up on his own and can catch himself when falling over, He can roll from front to back, and is quite the wiggle worm when you try to get him to sit still for long periods of time. Uh oh we're in trouble.


No teeth yet but he's quite the drool machine... that's an understatement. I'm thinking within the next month the first one will be popping through. (update: he got his first tooth 3/24/11... so I was right!)




He's now eating three meals of baby food a day and he loves it! Our little man loves his food. We haven't come across anything that he doesn't like or that he has an allergy to. Yay!




We're looking forward to a family vacation down to Tennessee to visit my dad, Lady and Winston :) We'll post pics!

Stats:

Weight - 18.10lbs

Length - 28.5 inches

Happy Half Birthday!!

6 months... half of a year. It's amazing to think how fast time has flown by and how much Ethan has changed and developed over the last 6 months. We're having so much fun as parents :)

This month our little guy has hit some big milestones. He can now sit up on his own and roll over both ways. I think this officially is my favorite stage so far. It's so much fun to see him concentrating and figuring things out with his toys and just observing everything around him. I think he's going to be very self amused... which is how I was as a kid... he loves just sitting and playing and figuring out his toys. He has also noticed the dogs recently and I can just see him wishing to be able to chase after them. Watch out Boston and Waldo... lol.

He now prefers to sleep on either his side or back... it's so darn cute :)

A couple months ago he was all about his hands... well now his feet have become his favorite thing to play with and chew/suck on ... but his fingers are still a close second. :)

We've started him on baby food now and he LOVES it. We haven't encountered a food that he doesn't like yet. We're still nursing mainly and the food is just for practice but it's so fun seeing him experience different tastes and textures. Starting solids has extended his feeding time to every 4 hours so that's been nice. But we have encountered the change in diapers... yuck. I know...it's only the beginning.

We've battled some bronchitis this month ... uggg... it was the worst... but Ethan is doing much better now... he's back to his happy self.

We are so blessed to have such a happy baby...I'm SO thankful for that! I hope that doesn't mean we're in trouble... though I do think he's going to be quite a handful once he's mobile lol.

Stats:
About 19lbs
Eating approx. 25 oz. plus 2 meals of solids

5 Months!

Five Months

(December 20th - January 20th)

It's a new year already (still struggling to remember to write 2011 on everything..). I think about the last 5 years and it's amazing how much has happened within that time and how FAST time has flown by. Thinking back I remember differen
t times and thinking, "Geeze time is going so slow!" ... well since our little man was born...I haven't thought that once...if anything it's "slow down!!". Every day these days it seems like I wake up in the morning and I blink and I'm back in bed again at night. I know it's just the season I'm in right now with all of the things I'm juggling...being a mom to an awesome little boy, working full time, spending time with family & friends, working-out, staying involved with church, and hopefully spending down time with Dave and Ethan, etc., etc., etc., and now on top of it musical theatre season as started again lol... AHH! Don't get me wrong... I love my life, I'm so so so blessed... it's just that this season is taking some getting used to. This past week has been an ever-changing emotional week for me. It started by finding out that my dear friend's mom passed away suddenly. That sturred some things within me that I've never had to deal with before. I've gone from last week being completely happy with my life and all of my committments feeling accomplished, empowered and something like a super-woman i guess... to my current feelings : meloncoly, too busy, guilt-striken, missing out on things and wanting to spend more time at home with Ethan and Dave. I know! For those that know me well... this is NOT the usual Lindsey. I realize what a big change of heart that is for me. So amidst this confusion my prayer is to make sure I'm living my life according to what the Lord wants for me...for Him to open doors and make it clear what I should and shouldn't be doing in my life. I'm excited to see what the Lord unveils for me... who knows maybe I'm just going through a weird week and everything should be how it is... but maybe this is the beginning of a huge transition in my life... we'll see! I trust in the Lord and know he'll help me through this.

Okay... AAANNNYWAY...now that my vent/self reflection is over... back to the star of this blog... Ethan!

He's 5 months old... wow. It's crazy how much babies change in the first year...

Ethan's first Christmas was so much fun! It just makes me so much more excited for next year when he's toddling around! yay! We had Dave's family over Christmas Eve and then went to my Aunt Karen's house Christmas Day. So much fun :)

Unfortunately, Ethan started showing signs of getting a cold Christmas Day which we didn't really think a whole lot of because he has had a cold before from being in daycare... but this time it developed into bronchitis which we had to treat with a nebulizer treatment. :( It broke my heart to hear is little cough and not be able to do anything for him... He's much better now and no longer has to get the nebulizer treatments :) Ethan was even so nice to share his cold with us ... sharing is caring ;)

Ethan's little personality shows through more and more as he gets older. I love it. He's becoming more playful now. He laughes (still waiting for that big belly laugh) and coos and talks and his new favorite thing is spitting... haha he loves "giving raspberries" to everyone or even to himself when he's amusing himself in his crib. So funny! He now grabs for everything! Toys, hair, earrings (ouch!) and keeps a death grip on them... so strong! He still LOVES his jumperoo! He definately recognizes us now... I get a huge smile when I get him up in the morning, pick him up from daycare or come home from work and the same for Dave... we love it! I have a feeling he's going to be a little stinker... watch out ! haha

He's such a joy...I can't really put words to it...

We've started giving him rice cereal once a day now at "dinner" time. He's getting better at it but at first he wasn't into it... he face was so funny... you would have though I just gave him a lemon or something lol.

Grandpa Graham & Lady Jack was in town this past week and we took him swimming again at their hotel. Wow our child LOVES water! He actually was swimming... pumping his arms and kicking his little legs... so cute! He was even trying to put his face in the water constantly (though we didn't let him). Our little water baby! We're going to make sure to nurture that ... maybe he'll be a little swimmer like his Daddy :)

I took him to his (late) 4 month check up this past Monday. He's 17.4 pounds and 27.2 inches long (90th percentile for weight and 95 percentile for height). Our cute little brute :) He's still eating 4oz every three hours or so. We've just added the cereal once in the evening.

We love our little man so much...here are just some pictures to enjoy :)

haha

happy baby!
"I want the camera"