Little Ethan-isms

This blog is all about Ethan. These pictures are just random ones in no particular order.

Ahh, this face is priceless.

His lips are blue from eating a sucker. That is a medicine syringe on his fingers.

He told me not to bother him because he was sleeping...with my mask on.

That's deviled eggs all over his face. He still smells everything before he eats it so I have no idea why he eats eggs because they sure don't smell good.

He was making snow cones at Nana and Papa's house.

He loves to get on riding lawn mowers. We don't own one but everytime we're at Home Depot I spend half my time trying to get him off of them. He has to try each one out.

Everything Ethan

1. He is constantly coming up to me and asking me to find something for him. When I ask him where he thinks it might be he says, "I don't know. It's probably somewhere."

2. The other day he declared that we would be going to "Old McDonald's" the next morning for pancakes and hashbrowns. I looked at him and said, "Who do you think you are?" And very seriously he said, "I'm Superman."

3. One of his favorite songs right now is "Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting" (from Kung Fu Panda). Anytime he hears it he says "It's my song!" and starts singing "everybody is kung tu fighting" complete with dance moves...I have yet to get that on video but I'm working on it.

4. He likes to change to words to songs and make up new verses...he gets that from his Daddy. They are especially good at it in the car.

5. He can hear a song once, then weeks later he'll say "Mommy, I want to hear that song, you know the one that goes...." and then he'll start singing it. Amazing.

6. He is still very into the drums. Anything can be a drum stick: straws, pens, stuffed animals, french fries, kitchen utensils, the list can go on and on...

7. Each night before bed, we have to give him a hug, kiss, high five, knuckles, and then wiggle our fingers together and say "coo-kie" (that word is from Wow Wow Wubbzy for you non Noggin watchers). I think the list of things we have to do before bed keeps growing as a stalling tactic.

8. He has an imaginary friend/foe named Puppet. He lives in my shower. We are undecided if he is nice or not. Most of the time he says he's mean and he looks scary "like a dinosaur or a lion or something". He brings him up every few days. One day he walked by my bathroom, looked into the doorway and just froze. I asked him what was wrong. He said "Puppet is in there" (behind the shower curtain.) He has never seen a scary puppet so I really don't know where this is coming from. Although, I did have an imaginary friend named Suguna...but she was nice. :-)

9. He is weird about food just like me. He doesn't like onions and won't eat anything with onions in it...except for onion rings. He sucks out the onion like a piece of spaghetti and eats it. I'm not telling him what it is. He won't eat a sandwich or garlic toast with the crust on the bread. But if he eats a plain piece of bread...he eats the crust. He still drinks "chama-milk" (chocolate milk). Mondo tried to wean him off of it...more like take him off cold turkey. He was giving him plain milk for a while and telling him it was chama-milk. Well, Mommy is a softie and still gave him the good stuff. He figured it out and now says, "I want chama-milk with chocolate. Mommy make it, not Daddy."

10. He still sleeps with the "Aunt Lou" blankets that she and my mom made when he was a baby. Now there are a few "tickle blankets". There are some edges that are worn from him pulling on the yarn so they stick up. He runs the tickle part under his nose and around his ear...it's comforting to him.

11. He is now into composing his own songs. He made one up the other day called "Rocket Song." He played the drums on the recliner and kept perfect rhythm. He sang it three times in a row, and now sings it on a daily basis and every time it sounds the same. Most of the words are slurred together so I don't know what he's singing about. He also made up another song called "Shut Up." I'll let you guess how those lyrics go.

10 Months old!

Caleb is now 10 months and busier than ever. He is completely off of baby food. He is Mr. independent and wants to feed himself...takes forever and is quite messy. He took two steps the other day but hasn't since. He knows he can get where he needs faster by crawling. He can't sit still in one place for too long. He loves to play in the playroom, bang on furniture, yell (not cry, yell), and he loves to climb on things. We had to take Ethan's little chair out of the living room because he was using it to crawl on to the fire place. We moved it next to the couch but then he used it to crawl on to the couch so we just took it out of the room. He has 6 teeth (4 on top and two on the bottom) and is working on 2 more on the bottom. He is sleeping better but not good enough for me. Sometimes he makes it through the night but is up to greet the day by 0630. Mondo takes that shift since he gets up around 0700 anyway. We still have several nights where he wakes up several times and either goes back to sleep, gets rocked back to sleep, or ends up in our bed for a while. It's exhausting!

First Oreo...and last Oreo...too messy!

Ethan actually took this picture. He spends a lot of time in the playroom helping Ethan destroy it.
He doesn't need the chair anymore to get on the fireplace.

He does just fine on his own.

Ta-da! He throws toys into the fireplace and then tries to retrieve them. He also loves to crawl back and forth. He's only fallen off twice. Luckily it's not very high and there is carpet below so he doesn't get hurt. I just worry about his little neck. When Ethan sees him up there he says "Oh my gosh!" and grabs him around the waist and pulls him off. It's pretty funny.

Who needs a walker when you have a high chair to push around the kitchen? (That's Lexi in the background.)

Or how about a kitchen chair? Gracie got caught underneath. Her feet looked like Scooby Doo because she was moving so fast to get out of there.

Attack of the greasy baby! Sometime he gets more than one bath a day now. If we're not going anywhere I'll just wipe him down but his hair dries all crusty. Gross.

"Oh no! I've ruined my beautiful hair!" This is how his hair gets so greasy. He rubs his hands all over it while he eats.

Heaven?

This picture cracks me up...he took it himself. He always makes this face when he takes a picture of himself.

Unfortunately we had a death in the family this past weekend. My uncle Bill passed away after a brief illness. We went to the visitation on Tuesday night and I was stressed about what to tell Ethan. As soon as he saw me take a shower he knew we were going somewhere (isn't that sad?). I told him that Uncle Bill went to heaven and we were going to see our family and that they might be sad because they missed him. I was ready to be bombarded with questions and the only one I got was "What is heaven?" I said, "You know, heaven, where God and Jesus live?" He looked completely confused and said, "Heaven? What?" And that was that. I couldn't believe this child didn't know what heaven was. Doesn't he know that I drag myself to church with him every Sunday, completely exhaused from working 12 hours the night before and that I send him to a Christian school so that he can know who God is and what heaven is?! I was floored...have I taught him nothing?!? At least there was a little humor to add in a sad situation. Check out the "Sonja's blog" link to the side to see Uncle Bill. He will be missed.....

Guitar Center

This is another old post I was working on and never finished....We took Ethan to Guitar Center last month to check out some drums. He was in heaven. We got him some drumsticks and he went to town! I think Mondo was on the verge of actually buying him a drumset but he decided to wait. Come back and check out this post a few years down the road when he's a rock star!

"But Dad, it's only $179!" No, he really didn't say that but he would've loved to have it.

Family Fun Night at Church

I actually started this post about a month ago and never finished it. This is from Family Fun night at the new activity center at church. It was the kick-off for the new Sunday night format for the young families class. It was loads of fun. There was a bouncy house, bouncy slide, burgers, hotdogs, and football. Can't go wrong with that combo. Ethan didn't want to leave and Caleb actually went to a few stangers. I was shocked! It was a nice break from having to hold him all the time.

The future of Turnpike...Zane, Darcy, Maddie, Vance, Maggie, and Caleb.

Action shot. He probably went down this slide 200 times.

Playing in the bouncy Superman obstacle course.

That's Mondo holding Caleb with Ethan next to him...and Ashlyn sliding.


He was so hot but would only stop for a short drink before he was off to the bouncy slide again.

Look at his little sweat ring on his neck.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to our first Pumpkin Patch last week and had lots of fun. It was quite a treck to Flowermound but it was worth it. Especially because it is all free! There were bouncy houses/slides, hayrides, and tons of photo ops which my children were not into. All Ethan wanted to do was play in the bouncy houses. It was cool in the morning so he had on jeans but he got hot pretty quick and refused to put on the shorts I brought for him. That's why he's so red-faced in all of these pics. Next time we'll skip the jeans. Caleb had as much fun as he could have being held and sitting in the stroller. It was one time I wished he could walk. I was actually glad he had on jeans so he could crawl around in the pumpkins. I don't even think Ethan realized there were pumpkins there. Maybe we'll go back and try again sometime...with Mondo's help. It got a little crazy about an hour after we were there and the buses of kids arrived. I kept losing Ethan as he would run bouncy house to bouncy house. Then he literally got trampled on one by some big kids who shouldn't have been on it. I couldn't find him then I saw him being pulled out by one of the workers and he was screaming and crying for me...so sad. He suddenly looked so tiny. Poor baby cried all the way to the car. But it was all for the best because I was ready to leave. Anywho, here are lots of pics:

Ethan, Caleb, Will, and Maggie. Caleb is the anti-smiler for pictures unless he's at home.

This was the best I could get of the two of them. Ethan said there was something in his eye. I think he just wanted to go back to the bouncy house.

He's always grabbing his ears...maybe it's time for another hair cut.

Group hug! (totally spontaneous by the way) I think Caleb was about to eat Maggie's hand.


The top of this says "This fall I'm this tall." But I accidently cut that part off. I was trying to get the picture before he ran off.

He probably wanted to eat one of those little pumpkins.

He was super excited about riding on these animals.

I was suprised he wasn't scared of this horse.

Again, no smile.

Look at all those pumpkins...and Ethan didn't even care about them. I had visions of him running through the fields of pumpkins...oh well.

I couldn't believe he wouldn't smile when he was with his favorite "Kung Fu Panda" pals. Caleb was interested in the hay and pumpkins.

There were so many of these cut outs and photo opportunities but he was not interested. He kept saying, "Can I go play now?"

Halloween Land

Every year the grandkids decorate my mother's enclosed patio with the theme of the season. Right now you will find "Halloween Land" as the kids call it. They are all types of annoying musical stuffed things, spiderwebs, etc. I think this may have been decorated since early September. Just wait till you see "Santa Land"...you're in for a treat!

It's more impressive with the lights off. What a great Nana and Papa to let the kids destroy, I mean, decorate their house.

Caleb is starting to understand the fun of Halloween Land. He likes to chew on the little pumpkins. I took a short video below to show the annoying, I mean, cute stuffed musical animals.

Professional Pics

We FINALLY had some professional pics done of the boys. We promised Ethan a prize if he listened and behaved...worked like a charm. He cheezed it up the whole time...all for a little plastic gorilla and cheetah from Rainforest Cafe. Caleb, on the other hand, doesn't take to bribery yet. It took him a while to warm up to having his picture taken by a stranger. We were practically standing on our heads to get him to smile. We got a few almost smiles but not big toothy ones...maybe next time. Here are a few of the many pictures.....