Christmas morning

I caught Ethan on video when he came down on Christmas morning. I love that he whispers "ohh. big truck" when he sees his car for the first time.

We had a lovely Christmas, filled with family, presents, amazing food, and creating memories. We are having a restful week so far, as well. Steve has had several days off, so when we weren't sick with the flu he's gotten some great house projects accomplished as well. Our garage door quit on us, so he installed a new one. Amazingly wonderfully quiet!! I am amazed at how loud the old one was now that the new one is up. Plus, we now have a pincode entry - luxurious :) And then he has replaced several of our bathroom ceiling fans which are now also wonderfully more quiet than the previous ones were.

fun with water

And now he's not really sure why mama doesn't let him do this whenever he wants to!

I also have to jot down this super sweet story that took place today at the library. Ethan is normally very timid about other kids potentially playing with toys that he wants to play with, like any other almost two year old, if he wants it, it's his. Well today at the library he was playing with one of those bead toys like this one when another boy around age 4 started watching. Ethan looked over at him and when I started to think I'd have to explain to Ethan that he can share, he looked at me and said "kids play beads too"! I translated for the boy, "yes, he can come and play with the beads too, if he wants to". So the little boy came and sat down with Ethan and played with the beads, and Ethan was really excited about it. Major break through :) The other boy was able to make the beads go a lot faster than Ethan, so Ethan was thoroughly impressed, and oohh-ed and laughed and said lots of "whoa"s which was fun for the other boy to be looked up to.

Then, I was blown away when Ethan ran around to our stack of books that we were going to check out, and grabbed an Elmo book and said "Ethan share Elmo book" and handed the book to the other boy. Oh my goodness, Ethan sometimes breaks down into tears when someone looks at his Elmo books, so when he handed this little boy an Elmo book and then went back to playing beads while the other boy read through the book (and I was so glad that the other boy took the time to page through a simple book that was way below his age-level) I was so proud of Ethan's growth in learning to share. When the other boy handed Ethan back the book, Ethan said thank you and put it back on our stack of books, and they went back to playing with the beads together. They then went on to play with a couple of other toys, a puzzle, and a magnet toy, then we had to go. It might just be a one time thing, I'm sure we have much more progress to be made in the sharing area, but two of his favorite things were shared joyfully today with a stranger at the library, and it made me one proud mama!!

pics and video

Yummy oreos

We just set up the finishing touches on the Christmas tree for tomorrow morning! We're going to open presents on Christmas Eve morning this year, since Steve will be in church early Christmas morning. Ethan is going to be so excited when he gets to ride in his very own car!

We all had the flu this past week, so Ethan spent plenty of time entertaining himself with mama's phone. It's scary how well he can use that thing.

Laundry is much more fun this way!

Painting ornaments

videos

So I'm finally getting around to uploading some of the videos off my phone, yay! Ethan has become quite the chatterbox lately. He copies everything we say, and narrates everything we do. I caught a little of his chattering on video before his cousin Saige arrived the other day. He was watching out the window for her, wanting to share his cookie monster doll with her, although you wouldn't know that he was excited to share with her once she did arrive :)

Another cute video of us chatting.

And I have been trying to get videos of all the cute things that Ethan's been doing or saying, he's just too on the go for me to catch everything. He loves this game, though I don't know how I feel about the game where the funny line is to yell "NOOOO SLEEPING!" haha.

And his all-time favorite Bible story right now is David and Goliath. He actually has a couple of his storybook Bible pages memorized and will say the words right along with us! He even acts out the story and gets super excited about falling down. I caught a little of him doing it today, although it doesn't even catch a glimpse of how excited he usually gets when he falls down :)

Pictures from the last month or so... in no particular order

Entertaining himself with my phone at the dock

Wen to the greenville airport, took a nap on the floor, found out our flight was canceled so we went back to my parents house and tried again the next morning at 3:45am :(

Ethan LOVED heading down to the water while we were at my parents house for Thanksgiving

Aunt Laura and Saige came over with a gingerbread house! The kids actually really liked doing it! It didn't hurt that Ethan LOVES candy :)

At the Mpls airport looking at all the planes on Thanksgiving day. Getting ready to head to B's house!

Quality time with Uncle Joe and Elmo

More gingerbread house

Down at the water with daddy