A Day at the Zoo

Yesterday my mom took us to the zoo for a day of fun. We got there right when it opened and bypassed all the school groups and had a great time. It wasn't too hot and wasn't too crowded and E loved the animals. His favorite were the monkeys (suprise suprise) since they would jump around and swing on branches. He also enjoyed the fish (he even said Nemo), the white tiger, the alligator, and the komodo dragon. When he saw the alligator and the komodo dragon he would growl at them really loud and he even started sticking his tongue out like the komodo. It was so funny! He had an awesome day and it ended with him taking a ride of the train and he did his "choo choo" sound all the way to the car. We all had a great time! Afterwards my mom took us to lunch to a great cafe and we put Ethan down for a nap. My dad got me a mani/pedi package for mother's day so I went ahead and got it done while Ethan was napping and my mom could watch him. It was wonderful! I swear the last time I ever did that was last year in Australia! A girl deserves some pampering every now and then so thanks to my dad for getting that for me! We had quite an awesome day!

E's Activities

E's days are filled with funny events and here are the videos to prove it. This is jsut a collection of E doing his regular everyday funniness.
Crib Jumping-this is what he does after his nap or in the mornings

Toliet Brush Golf-He found the toliet brush on the side of the toliet and thought it looked like a golf club and then proceeded to steal my deodorant off the counter and used it for a few rounds of golf. Yes, he is cheering for himself in the beginning of the video.

Chips and Salsa-Aunt Amy will love this one! If you eat at our hosue this week...don't eat the salsa.

Basketcase Part 2-E found the basket in the pantry again and played around with his new hat for awhile.

Pancakes!

E loves a good pancake in the morning so he'll run around the house saying "pankcake! pancake! pancake!" until I make them. So here's a video of him just being the funny E that he is.

Girls' Night Out

My friend Kaitlyn had all the girls over for a "Girls' Night Recipe Exchange". You can read all about it on her site. We had a tons of fun and stayed out way too late. Just like Girls' night should be!

One, Two, Three

E's started jumping a lot and loves to jump into pillows or into some one's arms. Before he jumps he always counts, but in the past he's just mimicked our voice inflection and garbled some baby language. Yesterday he actually started counting on his own and saying the right words. It was so cute! Sorry the video is sideways, but I wasn't thinking about that while I was filming. He says it around 13 seconds so listen hard.

House Tour

The last time I did a video of our house was the day we closed so we didn't have anything painted or any furniture moved in. So here's a video of what we've done so far. Watch it and let me know what you think. I want to hear comments from EVERYONE...that means you!!!

18 Month Check Up

Today was Ethan's check up with the doctor and since I haven't found a pediatrician up here yet, I went down to our old one down at my mom's. I love my pediatrician and she is so worth the 40 minute drive!!! The last time we were at the doctor was back at his 15 month check up and it's so interesting to see how he's change since the last visit. I remember last time how busy Ethan was and that I could barely sit down in the waiting room because he was everywhere! This time he was very interested in the little bead things that he could push up and down, the kids in the room, and reading some of the books. I like the fact that he has a little bit of fear of running off and that he can follow simple commands. So anyway here are his stats: Weight 26.4 lbs which is 50th percentile and Height 32 inches which is 50%. So he is basically average all around. In other areas he is jumping off the charts: language and motor skills. My pedi was stunned that he could say over 50 words and a few short sentences ("all done", "I'm stuck", "wanna snack", "go outside" "bye bye daddy" "night night momma" etc.). She said that he is performing more at a 2 year old level and that his comprehension is the same as well. I'm so proud of him! He is also doing well with his motor skills in the way that he can play basketball, hit a golf ball with a club, kick a ball, and run and climb. Ethan's quite the star and he's so cute! After he had his Hep A vaccine we took him home and let him go swimming at my mom's. He loved it! He'd swim with a little assistance and go after the beach ball or the little toy fish. I haven't enrolled him in any swim lessons yet so I'm just working on some basics to get him used to the water and to make it fun. After we swam we all ate fudgecicles and had a great time.

New Links

Please take a special note to the new links on my side bar. They are my latest blogs that I love to peruse. I haven't updated my side bar in awhile so I needed to add all the new people to blogger and friends that I have met since I've been in Texas. Oh, and if you've been added to the side bar and you don't want to be, just let me know.

Garden Update

Here are some pictures of my garden when I first started it and where it's at now. My garden is growing like crazy! Some plants are doing better than others, but overall it's doing really well. I have 6 tomotoes growing on my tomato plants! 3 of the tomoatoes are tiny little green round things, but they will be tomatoes eventually. My parsely and basil aren't doing as well as I had hoped so I'm just keeping my eye on them. The cilantro has turned into a huge bush! I'm going to have some major Mexican and Thai dishes just to use it up! My rosemary is also doing very well and we've had some pretty good rosemary potatoes lately. I just love being able to cook and just run out to my garden to get fresh herbs whenever I need them! It's so fresh and so awesome! I love my garden!

Sprinkler Time

Do you remember those times as a kid when eat popsicles outside and then jump through the sprinklers? I LOVED the sprinkler growing up so I wanted to let Ethan try it out for the first time. He was covered from head to toe in sticky popsicle juices so I let him get hosed down in the sprinkler. It was hilarious! I let him take off his diaper and just run free. I didn't think he'd enjoy it too much since the water was pretty cold and it would get in his face, but he jumped right in like a little 6 year old. I don't know what he liked more, the sprinkler or not having a diaper. I finally had to cut off all the water fun since he was getting quite a bit of sun and I didn't have sunscreen on him so I had to take his little grassy feet and let him play in the tub instead. I'm so looking forward to more sprinkler fun this summer!

What Is In Your Nose?!

That is what I have been saying to Ethan at every meal this week! He's been stuffing any sort of food up there whenever he can. So far he's had ham, oatmeal, granola bar, apple, pancake, meatloaf, and crackers up there. I can handle getting food out, but I don't if it would be easy if he starts putting small toys up there. It seems like he gets it up there so far and then he sneezes and all the food comes out. The other day he was playing in the toy room and he had a huge sneeze and all this cracker comes shooting out of his nose! He had a cracker for a snack about 5 minutes earlier and I guess he got bored with it and wanted to see if he could save it for later. Who knows what is going through his mind when he does it?! So any ideas on how to get him to stop? I've tried watching him to catch him in the act and tell him no no and then make him blow his nose, but it doesn't seem to get through. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My New Do

I've been trying to grow out my hair since August and now I'm ready for a change. So I went for a nice summer haircut on Saturday morning. It was taking me a ton of time to blow dry my hair with it being so long so now I can have a cute cut and do my hair in half the time. So here are my before and after shots.

Vacation Day 9 and 10

We drove home on Saturday and Sunday. This time we drove about 10 hours to Baton Rouge and stayed down town in a cool hotel. Unfortuneatly Ethan woke up at 5 in the morning so needless to say we got an early start. We got into Dallas around 2:30 and we were so happy to get out of the car. The ride home wasn't as easy as the ride there since Ethan knew what was going on and that the drive is quite long. He hasn't gotten into his carseat peacefully since then so I'm working on short trips with him right now. The picture is Ethan helping me pack up by pulling everything out of the drawer and then getting in it. Daddy was waiting for us to get home and Ethan was so excited to see him! It was great to be back together as a family again. Not to mention it was great to be home. Ry did everything on his "honey do" list and then some. It was so nice to come home to a clean house and not have a huge list of things for me to conquer right after getting off of vacation.

Vacation Day 7 and 8: Shopping and Sick Days

Ethan woke up from his nap with vomit all over himself and that was the beginning of his sick time on vacation. He didn't want anyone else to hold him except me, he just laid in my arms all the time, he didn't eat, he slept a lot. Not fun. We bought him some Popsicles and I tried to keep his fluids going as long as he wasn't throwing up anymore. You could just tell he wasn't feeling well. He seemed to feel better in the afternoons so we took him shopping. It was pretty nice since he didn't put up a fuss and he'd sleep in the stroller. I took him to the shoe store and got his feet measured and the lady told me he doesn't have wide feet, he has extra wide feet! No wonder his shoes never velcroed right! So I found him a pair of size 6 XW for his chunky little feet. So we spent our last days in Florida shopping and I got another day by the pool while Ethan napped. Sooo nice! We also walked through Downtown Disney to see all the shops and restaurants there. It was a pretty cool place.

Vacation Days 5 and 6 : Pool Days

Here is Ethan in his super cute floaty suit and sunglasses. This was his first time in the pool for the summer so it was quite exciting. We've also taught him to say "Cool Dude!" when he puts on his glasses and that just cracks me up. We had a lot of fun at the pool. He only face planted in the water once, but that wasn't enough to make me stop getting in and out of the pool. I spent much of the day chasing him and playing "fill up the bucket." Thankfully my parents offered to stay in with him while he napped so I could hang out by the pool alone. I ordered myslef a "Grande Copa Loca" and sipped it leisurely by the pool and soaked in some rays.
Here is the view from my chair. I had to take a pictures so I could capture the moment and remember my alone time.

18 Months!

Happy 18 Months to Ethan! Watch out Nursery here he comes!!!!

Vacation Day 4: Disney World!!! Part 1

Here are some of my pictures from Disney World so I'll go through them and tell you guys a little bit about it.
This is my dad and Ethan on the tram ride. Ethan grew very attatched to my dad on this trip as you can tell. Anyway...we took the tram to the monorail which is the subway type thing that you take to get to the actual park. Ethan loved how the doors opened and shut by themselves and that he got to ride backwards. Once we got to the park we rented a stroller. We got that tip from my Aunt Leslie and I was so glad! The stroller was low to the ground and Ethan could spread his legs out. Plus, you have to park your stroller every time you ride a ride so I didn't have to worry about someone taking my stroller.
Right when we walked in we had to take a picture in front of Cinderella's castle.
This is the look that Ethan had on his face all day long. He was totally mesmerized from the moment we got there. We headed over to Tomorrowland first and we rode on the Buzz Lightyear ride. I thought it would be a little scary for him since it was pretty dark and everything glowed, but no, he was way into the controls on the ride car. He could move the joystick and make our car go around and around and then they had laser guns that he could move and that made his day.
We rode on few more rides like the Indy Cars (he did NOT like them at all), Monsters Inc show (loved it), and I got to ride on Space Mountain with my dad while my mom took Ethan over to Toon Town. After all that you can tell what happened...he was zonked. So we ate some lunch, but he ended up waking up 15 minutes later so we decided to take the tram home and get him a nap. Stay tuned for part 2.

Vacation Day 4: Disney World Part 2!!!

After Ethan's nap we headed back on the tram for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Once again, he's hanging with my dad.
This is Ethan on the his favorite ride of the day, "Small World." All the little people in the ride were about his size and they were right on his level so he just absorbed it all. I have a short video of him on the ride, but a lot of it is dark so I don't know if I'll post it. On the video he's totally waving to all the "Small World" figures, it was so cute! Other rides that Ethan loved were Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and Pirates. Then we also took him to the Country Bears show and the Tiki Room.
Here's Ethan and my mom watching the light up parade. We got the best seats in the house since I was dying for a funnel cake and raced in line to get one and turned out that there were tables and chairs in the back to sit at. Well, everyone was lined up on the street for the parade route, but they didn't realize that the tables by the bridge were a better spot. Ethan loved the music and all the bright lights. Needless to say, he had a blast!
I packed Ethan's pajamas in the car so he could fall asleep in the car and be easy to put to bed. This is the sweetest picture of Ethan and "Daddy Papa" (that's what Ethan calls him) at the end of such a fun day!