Just another day in paradise: Another Week Gone By

I know that I have not been great about posting, we have been busy, busy, busy, but not much new. We have been working hard on our patio and Mike is putting on the finishing touches as I type. We are hoping to debut it on Father's Day in a few weeks!

One of Mike's shoes after working outside all day, Ethan stuck it in the drawer

We have started adjusting Ethan's nap schedule. He only has a few days before he is a year and a half and is starting to not need two naps. Starting is the key word there, the adjustments are ongoing at this point and take a lot of balance. We were finding that our 2 nap schedule (9am and 1pm) wasn't working. At least one of the naps would be too short or he wouldn't sleep through the night, but, with only one nap, he can't quite make it to bedtime without breaking down. This past week what seems to work is putting him down around 10:30am, hoping he sleeps at least an hour and a half, then putting him down between 3 and 3:30pm. The afternoon nap can't be over an hour or past 4:30pm or he wakes up overnight. We know that nap times will be a constant adjustment until he's ready to do away with nap #2.
Other than that, there's not much going on here. He's talking up a storm and trying out all kinds of new sounds, some understandable, most gibberish. He likes to climb, mostly people. We try to be outside a lot throughout the day. He really enjoys 'driving' our cars while we work in the yard. He is becoming slightly addicted to tv, although we limit his watching, he knows that Grandma can turn on Elmo whenever he wants or that Mommy can put in his Thomas video, oh and he is definitely learning what works toward his favor to get these outcomes. At least to counteract the tv addict, he also LOVES books! He is always getting into his books and just plays with them. We have one night time book that's a compilation of Disney stories, at the end are 2 pages of stickers. He's learning how to peel off the stickers and then stick them on a blank page. Plus he knows some of the character's names so that increases the appeal of the book. Yesterday we went to Target to look at their book section and we couldn't peel him away without tears.

Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you