Today is one of those magical days where Ethan played by himself most of the morning allowing me to get my Bible study done with few interruptions, we had a fun time at the library's story time, he is taking a wonderfully long nap now so I got time to put a loaf of blueberry bread in the oven and do a little bit of blogging before he wakes up. These easy-going days are appreciated, and I'm learning to appreciate the hectic ones like yesterday when he refused to nap and kept me on my toes all afternoon :) I do love spending time with my little buddy.

Here are some pics that I've been needing to post.

Grammy B made Ethan a super fun doggie quilt for Christmas! He loves it, and here he is barking at it when he saw it the first time.

The slide that we have has two heights. Daddy just put the extension on to make it bigger. Ethan grabbed the screwdriver (see it in his hand?) and ran around this morning making his other toys bigger too, saying "make bigger" as he searched for screws to tighten :)

Made an ornament at the nursery during my MOMS morning at church.

Totally wowed me by easily picking up how to use a mouse at the library. He is totally focused and yells "Ethan click Elmo!" when he gets to play the elmo game :)

Showing off his Clemson tigers shirt. Says "Clemson Tiger by birth"

So yesterday was an eventful day in Ethan's vocabulary. He says "ok" a lot, following every sentence practically. "Ethan play toys? Ok" "Mama help please? Ok". It first started coming out "ahh-say" and then morphed into "o-tay". Yesterday held more "okay"s than any other form. Steve and I still say ahh-say to each other for okay, and now Ethan has outgrown it. I will miss that word :)

Funny stuff

Ethan just watched me load the dishwasher, put soap in, and start it up. He nodded and said "good job mama".

Bye bye

I really need to be keeping better track of the funny things that get said around here. Ethan's vocabulary is growing daily and he keeps me laughing. Today he was running around without a diaper for a while and when I told him it was time to get a diaper on he stood up and waved to himself and said "bye bye pee pee! See ya soon!"

you know your kid watches too many youtube videos on your phone when

you put him to bed, and after a bit of fussing, starts to sing this song

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