First Family Vacation

Last month, we went on our very first family vacation and we all had a blast!  We went with Gabby & Peepaw and the dogs and we all piled into Peepaw's truck before the sun was even up on Wednesday, September 17 and headed down to Port Aransas.  We were expecting rain all week, so we were pleasantly surprised when we enjoyed 3 days with no rain at all and 1 day with just some light morning showers.  It was pouring when we were packing up to leave on Sunday though!

Ethan LOVED the beach!!!  He had so much fun splashing/kicking the water, jumping over the waves, throwing the wet "quick sand", building sand castles, driving his dump truck, flying his kite, feeding seagulls, swimming in the pool, fishing, eating, riding the ferry, playing at the park, watching ships/dolphins, playing with Gabby & Peepaw, and just exploring everything!  We had a busy few of days!!!  So busy, that our little anti-napper actually took good naps every day we were there :)

Here are a few (okay, a lot) of pictures from Ethan's very first vacation...

 Day 1: Hitching a "ride" to the beach with Daddy

 Day 1: Family Photo (first time to see the beach for Ethan)

 Day 1: Jumping waves with Mom & Dad

 Day 1: Kicking & Splashing

 Day 1: All BOY!  Throwing wet sand :)

Day 1: Such a handsome beach bum

Day 1: Enjoying his Gabby & Peepaw

 Day 2: Relaxing in his beach chair

 Day 2: Molly doing the same!

Day 2: Daisy's a swimming dog

 Day 2: Daddy caught him a fish from the ocean with his bucket!

 Day 2: Flying his kite!  We had the beach to ourselves!

Day 2: So excited about his kite!

 Day 2: Burrying Ethan in the sand

 Day 2: Hanging with Mommy

 Day 2: Feeding fritos to the seagulls with Gabby and Dad

 Day 2: Exploring the marina at dinner with Peepaw

 Day 2: Riding the ferry boat

Day 2: Playing at the park

 Day 3: Cruising in the pool

 Day 3: Cannonball!!!!  Ethan learned quickly after watching Daddy & Peepaw :)

 Day 3: Look at this little dolphin under the water!

 Day 3: Fun in the pool with Daddy!

 Day 3: Shark bait

 Day 3: Watching the ship come in

 Day 4: Digging & dumping at the beach

 Day 4: Daddy dug up a crab!

 Day 4: Busy, busy boy!

Day 4: He could do this all day long!

Day 4: Mom caught a fish with lil buddy's fishing pole!

What a fantastic week!  Even mom and dad got to relax a little, thanks to Gabby & Peepaw entertaining the little guy!  We will treasure these memories forever!

Toofies!

On August 12th, Ethan went to the dentist for his first big boy cleaning.  He did so good!!!  He sat in the big chair all by himself (after being able to bring this "big mouth" doggy back from the waiting room).  Then he let the hygienist brush, polish and FLOSS all his little toofies!  Ethan thought it was funny when Erin was polishing his teeth because the brush was striped like a zebra and she told him the zebra was going to tickle his teeth :)  After his cleaning, he let Dr. Jenny count and look at all his teeth with a tiny mirror, and she gave him a little gold coin in exchange.  He was able to "buy" a new bouncy ball from the machine in the waiting room with his coin and he was so proud.  What a big boy!!!

Schulenburg Picnic

Last month (August 3rd) we drove to Schulenburg to surprise Julie & Wes as they rode on a float in the festival parade for Julie's 45th class reunion.  Ethan had a great time watching the parade with his cousins, and consuming ridiculous amounts of candy.  After the parade we went to the picnic and Ethan enjoyed dancing to the music and playing in the park with Dominik & Anthony.  It was a great day!!

And here is a little video of Ethan enjoying the music while eating his lunch:

I will be playing catch-up over the next week or so... please forgive the tardiness of many of these updates!

Sunday Funday

We spent several hours today at Zilker park celebrating sweet little Kai, who would've been 3 on Friday.  So many people were there to celebrate his birthday, and we were happy to be a part of it!  This park in downtown Austin, has a miniature train (which Kai loved) and so some close friends of the family had arranged for free rides today in his honor.  Ethan loved riding that train too!  He also enjoyed a cupcake, playing on the playground, "driving" an old firetruck, playing in Barton Creek, and eating a snow cone.  It was definitely a great time!!!

Waiting for the train

Family pic on the Zephyr train

Riding the train

 "Driving" an old fire truck

The dolphin is wearing his hat since Ethan didn't want to!

Wading in Barton Creek

Ethan had so much fun playing with the little dogs in the water!!

Enjoying a snow cone to cool off... only blue, of course!

AFTER the snow cone :)

Hope everyone has a great week!

Little Monkey

Since soccer is over for the spring and we won't be able to make it to the new time for the summer season, we decided to let our little monkey try out gymnastics.  The good news is that he loves it!  The bad news is that he LOVES it... so much that he can barely control his impulse to run, climb, jump and hang from anything and everything in sight.  So, this will be good for him to not only work on coordination, balance and flexibility but also his focus and impulse control.  It will also provide many opportunities for me to practice patience :)

In just 2 classes he has already...

Walked the balance beam...

Done the bear crawl...

Swung on the "high" bars...

Attempted a tuck on the rings...

 Escaped from the group (MANY times)...

Completed obstacle courses...

And played in the foam pit.