Night Night

Summer Days

I don't know what we're going to do when summer is over here in Colorado, we enjoy being outside too much. Ethan has so much energy that I can't stand the thought of being cooped up. Plus, all we would do is watch Thomas the Train and there's only so much of that that I can stand. But I also know thinking about it and living in it are two different things and, hopefully, when winter's over we'll say "that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought." For now we are just enjoying our time of playing outside without having to put on 3 layers of clothing.

We've been spending a lot more time at the park since Ethan learned how to dangle. He also enjoys watching and playing next to other kids. I am very grateful that we are taking advantage of our church nursery on Sunday's, it seems to be helping his interaction and sharing skills. We had dinner with some friends the other night, they have 3 kids ranging from 5 to almost 1 1/2, and watching them interact was great! The oldest is a boy, Connor, and loves to use Michael as a personal jungle gym and I expected a little jealousy from Ethan but he just did his own thing. There were lots of tractors and 2 slides to help distract him. He really got along with their 3 year old girl, Sierra. He was running around the yard and noticed she was sitting at the picnic table still eating and he went and sat with her.

Yesterday was a rough day. I'm not sure if he's getting teeth in, going through a growth spurt, or just becoming a 2 year old, but he was a handful! It was hot too, so I broke out the hose with sprayer to divert some of the crabbiness:


Then we went and had dinner with Grandma, Papa and Auntie and that made the day a lot better

4th Anniversary

2005

Michael and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on the 20th of this month. This was also our 9th anniversary of being a couple. We feel so blessed through the past 4 years and often look back in amazement from where we started, and we know that the journey is just beginning!

2009

My sister came over to watch Ethan for the evening so we had a romantic dinner at the Mona Lisa, a fondue restaurant in Manitou Springs. We enjoy going to fondue on our anniversary because it is such a long dinner and really gives us time to be adults (away from work) and reconnect. Thank you to everyone for the anniversary cards and wishes.

I know this isn't the best quality video but I wanted to show you all what Michael taught Ethan to do at the park


He has been very into climbing and hanging lately. He tries to hang from the handles on the refrigerator! He can hold on for a long time too!

Finances

It was a hard decision for us, for me to go back to work only part time after I was laid off at my previous employer. Especially in the state the economy was in, trying to raise a child, pay bills and keep a decent lifestyle. It has been working out very well for us (minus not being able to eat out or buy new things without discussing it first).
We decided, if we are to continue this path, it was time Ethan got involved in the family finances, we're teaching him to save his pennies:

Does the bank look familiar Mom?

We actually don't let him play with money very often, this was mine when I was younger (and probably one of my favorite things) and I thought he'd enjoy turning the knob and handle. Michael broke out some coins and he had a blast putting the in the slot. Yes, he is my son and shows it through many characteristics. I told him to change the combination before Daddy gets a hold of it!

First Sentence

Yesterday Ethan and I were watching his Thomas the Train video, it is an episode where Thomas falls into a hole and Gordon has to come pull him out. After Thomas fell, Ethan looks at me and says: "Juju elp T-T-T" in other words "Gordon help Thomas." Over course I got very excited and gave him lots of love and praise and he kept saying it over and over. This is officially Ethan's first sentence. He uses a lot of words together like "All done" of "Up above" but I don't think he knows that they are separate words so they don't count. We were trying to count all the words he uses the other night and we got to 80 before we lost count, then I thought of more later. It's so incredible to watch him try to communicate. If he wants something in a particular place he'll say the word or point to it and then point to where he wants it. For example he is crazy over Popsicles, so he'll say "pop pop" then point to the inside of his hand. Also, when he says something and you guess correctly what he said he'll laugh, like "yeah you got it".

Here's some pics from last week, we did a little hiking through Garden of the Gods. Oh and interestingly enough, although Ethan is turning into quite the reckless climber, he did not like climbing the rocks.

My Little Swimmer

Ethan has been very excited about water lately. Previously it's been sort of hit or miss with swimming, sprinklers, buckets of water, etc. The past few weeks I have taken him swimming about 4 times (a lot for us) and he has enjoyed every time! For two of those times, enjoyed is not quite the right word. He turned into a Wild Man!! He was absolutely reckless the last time we went. He actually enjoys being dunked under water and does it without help sometimes. He would take hold of the bar that is used as a railing to climb the steps, swing out his legs and then drop into the water. He is crazy!!!! I can't tell you how proud of him I am (and I'm sure his Papa agrees).

Along with being crazy in the pool, Ethan loves any chance to play in the water. His new thing (which I'm convinced he learned from Milo) is to stick his head in a bucket of water, lift his head out, and drink it as it drips off of his nose.




It is hilarious!! Not just buckets either, you may remember this pool that my mom has for him, it has seen some head dunking as well(I just wanted to post that pic)

Left Overs

I'm not quite sure why, but these photos didn't transfer with the rest, so here's part 2 of our trip:

sweet boy in his super cute jammies (24 months!)

Being cool with Daddy's shades during lunch

A final trip to the reservoir

Throwing rocks (as mentioned in previous post, a favorite thing to do)

Notice Daddy's hands are ready to catch should anything go wrong here

Love these two

A Weekend in Dillon

Michael and I, and now Ethan by association, are the type of people that need to take mini vacations once and awhile to keep our sanity. Sometimes this would be camping and for a few years it was Estes Park. Now that I am (very happily) not working full time, we had to look for something cheap and I am not quite brave enough to take Ethan tent camping. Some really great family friends of ours own a condo in Dillon (very close to some of the major ski towns) that doesn't get too much use in the summer. So with keys, directions, and about as much luggage as we took on our last trip to Florida, we headed to the mountains. The drive up was a mix between terrible (three long traffic jams) and awesome (spotting every tractor and train that we could and having Ethan shout "mo!", more, after every one).

In the parking lot soon after arriving

Ethan LOVED the condo!! A previous owner decorated three and a half walls throughout the place with mirrors and that was a big hit (we used a bit of window cleaner before we left) Plus, the futons in the living room were just the right height for climbing. Along the side of the complex was a great grassy area with a small creek (more like a trickle) that we walked and played along. One thing not so great in Ethan's mind was having to go to bed. The first night was pretty rough. We let him stay up a little later and use up all his energy but it was still a new place. He stayed asleep once he was down but as you can see from this face:

we got up VERY early! 5am early. Normally I would leave him in bed for a little but since we were in the same room there was no chance he would fall back asleep, especially with all the exploring there was left to do. For breakfast we went to a little cafe and had a wonderful meal, including a happy pancake:
After a great nap, we headed over to the Dillon reservoir to cook up some hotdogs and play. They had some grills by this cool playground, Ethan only wanted to play on the spiny things

While Daddy was cooking we went exploring, there was some kind of fund raiser going on and they had a little radio set up and Ethan just started dancing!
The gorgeous Dillon Reservoir
The condo complex has a rec center so we headed over in the afternoon to swim. It was pretty chilly but we had a good time. Afterward we went outside to play on the playground but the mud was more interesting. Stomping in the mud, a favorite past time

"I've got a stick!"

That was the busiest of the weekend, mostly we hung around the condo, Ethan and Daddy found a ball in the creek, from the way he was playing with it you would think he didn't already have 2 at home.

Taking a swing at the ball with some bark

This was during one of our walks. We now throw rocks into any water source we can find

That pebble didn't go quite far enough for Ethan, good thing Daddy was there to catch him as he dove in after it

"I don't know dad, that looks awfully heavy..."

"...but of course I'll help you try"

King of the Mountain!!

The second night went a lot better, we managed to sleep till 6:30.

Taking a walk in the morning before we left

On one of the boat docks at the reservoir before we headed home

I am so grateful that we had this opportunity available to us and am glad we took it to spend some time as a family.

Picture catch up

I have fallen behind on my blogging, life happens so fast and, no offense, but I'd much rather enjoy it in person than on the computer. We are non stop all day, minus a Thomas the Train video that keeps us occupied for a 1/2 hour or so. Then at night we try to sneak in some time for ourselves before we fall in bed, exhausted.
Here's some pictures from last week, and hopefully before next week I'll get up our pictures from our weekend in Dillon.

Last Tuesday we went up to Fox Run Park to burn off some energy, there were tons of these bright colored mushrooms, so here's my take on being creative:

It was not the warmest day but Ethan has been enjoying the water so much lately so we let him stick his feet in
But then he tried to get away from me



We have been making a lot of chalk drawings, Ethan always requests that we draw Dada, usually I just spell it out, this day we decided to make a portrait of Dada in the driveway, you can just barely see it behind them
I caught him loving on the orangutan
Ethan's first experience with corn on the cob was a definite success
This is at Babies R Us, we don't even have to turn it on for him to enjoy it
Look at what's on the rock, Ethan found a slug in the grass!