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.

Easter

We spent Easter with Gabby and Peepaw, and that visit was way over due.  For the last 2 weeks Ethan told us every day (multiple times per day) that he was going to see Gabby, Peepaw and Daisy in two weeks!  What a long couple of weeks, but I think he would say it was worth the wait :)

We had fun celebrating Easter and Ethan enjoyed decorating eggs for the first time!  He participated in several egg hunts and the Easter Bunny spoiled him rotten.  Probably because he is too stinkin' cute!

Taking his animals on a walk in his PJs and bunny ears :)

Coloring and decorating eggs... only one landed on the floor!

Decorating himself

Being silly with Memaw!  I think he was showing her how monkeys go.

Precious boy!  Such a blessing <3

Hunting those "eggies"

Family Easter picture

Cutest bunny EVER!!

Gabby and our lil bunny

All us girls with the lil bunny

"Errr... this thing won't open!"

Easter bunny brought some silly string :)

The Zoo

Last weekend we took Ethan to the Ft. Worth zoo!  This zoo is nothing like the Austin zoo and little Ethan loved seeing all the monkeys, zebras, tigers, elephants, giraffes...  We even saw some baby elephants and baby monkeys.  While our favorite was probably the otter that we watched eat his lunch, Ethan's favorite was definitely the monkeys/gorillas.  We had to visit them twice and he is still talking about them (and pretending to be one.)  We saw a gorilla arranging some grass and then lay down on it, and now some nights he arranges his blankets and then tells me he is moving the grass, or he will tell me to say to him "lay down little monkey."  And he knows that monkeys like bananas and he also likes bananas, so this clearly must be further proof that he is in fact a monkey :)

Family pic with the zebras

Watching the otter with Gabby

Taking a lil break with Peepaw

Cooling off in the misters (he spent most of the day on Daddy's shoulders!)

Being a bear!!!  Roar

Top of the fun list... riding the carousel!  This was a first :)

Waiting for the train

Tied for most fun was riding the train!!!

All of us on the train- LOVE this!

Bye-bye train

Two + 1/2

[This is a long one]

Last week on Thursday was Ethan's half birthday :)  I really wish time would just slow down!  It's been a while since I've posted his likes/dislikes, favorite things, etc so I am going to take this opportunity to do just that.

Ethan still loves to see pictures and watch videos of himself on the iPhone, but since we recently started letting him watch some TV, he now also loves to watch a British cartoon called Kipper.  Troy & I enjoy the humor and plausibility of the show, and each episode is only 7 minutes so its a win-win.  He loves any kind of balls and also balloons.  He likes to throw them, kick them, and "shoot" them (this could mean into the basketball net or up into the ceiling fan or sky.)  He still loves tractors and can correctly identify almost all the different varieties.  Construction workers and farmers are the same in his eyes, I guess since they both drive tractors, so they are all "farmers".  I don't know what we will do when all the construction in the neighborhood is completed!  He also likes to ride on his "trucks" and pretend that they are fire engines.  He loves to play with his little pals, Micah, Olivia and Amelia and does pretty well taking turns.  He sleeps in his own "big boy" bed and never gets out until we come in there to get him (knock on wood.)  He recently started sleeping with his soccer ball every night/nap and I guess that is his new thing.  He will not lay down unless he has his soccer ball... which is crazy because he never wants any of his stuffed animals in there.  They all have to sleep on the floor or in the closet.  He likes to take showers now and has fun painting with shaving cream on the shower wall.

He talks so much and says so many funny things!  Right now he loves to talk about going to the ocean.  He wants to go there on "Saturday" and he says he is going to catch a bubble and jump in with Daddy (like at swimming lessons.)  When he swings really high at the park, he says "uh oh, don't hit the clouds" or if we are on the back porch it's "don't hit the fan." He can count to 17 and sing his ABCs.  He can "read" one of his favorite books, "Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin" and he knows his whole name, my name and Troy's name.  He is still not too keen on eating meat, but loves fruit, dairy and carbs- especially pancakes and waffles!  He will eat broccoli occasionally, but does enjoy a green smoothie everyday.  And he likes to drink his milk in a cup with no lid :)

Anyways, we used his half birthday last week as an excuse for a weekday family fun day, and went to the new Children's Museum, The Thinkery!  Oh boy, did Ethan have fun.  We were there 3 hours, and even then we only lured him away with temptations of pizza for lunch!  Here are some pictures of our fun day with this busy little boy:

 Swinging at the park across the street, while waiting for the museum to open.

 A quick snack before we started exploring

After painting, he cleaned his area with a spray bottle and squeegee

Building with magnetic blocks

Building an airplane

 Now testing his airplane's aerodynamics with Daddy.

Playing in the "backyard" at the museum

Playing the drums at the musical water table

And his favorite activity... climbing, running, and jumping on these soft gym blocks!!!

And on our way out, we had to get a picture riding on these little piggies :)