imagination

Goofy faces and popsicles

We made a paper chain to count down the days till someone turns 3!

And now some dancing.

Ethan has a great imagination. Lately he loves pretending that he's someone else... an animal, a person from a movie, or me. Today we played that he was me and I was him. I asked him what mommy says and he dove right into a fabulous impression of me. "Ethaaaannnn, I don't have any kisses today! Where's my kisses??" I pretended to run away and not want to give him a kiss and he tracked me down, pulled me close and said "I need some kisses. I'm gonna get my kisses". So funny, he does a great job mimicking.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day :) We had a fabulous dinner of pink pancakes, and pink milk. I tried my luck with two new recipes, one for dinner and one for dessert. Dinner was a smashing hit! Dessert was not. Not quite a pintrocity, but I won't be trying to make cake in a crock pot again. No one ate very much and the rest went into the trash.

Pink pancake batter

Place settings.

Ethan getting ready to dig into his pink meal

Good thing we all LOVED the new pancake recipe. A little back story... when Steve and I were dating I made him pancakes that turned out horribly. Burned on the outside, still doughy in the middle - a complete disaster! We still laugh about it today! We both love restaurant style pancakes. Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal to eat out. I have tried so many copy cat recipes and buttermilk pancake recipes to try to make them at home (even Martha's buttermilk pancake recipe, and I love Martha), and they're never nearly as good. 

I had almost given up after almost 10 years of looking at new recipes and trying them here and there, then always reverting back to bisquick. Not bad, just not really what I was looking for. Then as I was looking through recipes on The Pioneer Woman's blog (I love her!) I came across her pancake recipe. I was tempted as she also said that she was obsessed with finding a good pancake recipe. One that makes it worth the calories :) I love them! So worth the extra effort to make from scratch. If you also like pancakes, this recipe is worth trying out. 

Still cracking me up

The other night Ethan told me that he had to go potty and he wanted to do it all by himself. I told him to let me know if he had trouble with his pants. A couple minutes later he yells "mom, can you help me? My tummy is too big!" Yep, he couldn't see the button because his tummy is too big:)

Ethan has fun pretending to be a baby and when we play I call him baby Ethan. He calls me baby mommy, and Steve baby daddy. Cracks me up so much each time I hear it!

Also, he pronounces anything that ends in "ink" (sink, stink) as "ank" (sank, stank). Cracks me up each time he says "it's stanky in here".

The weather had been pretty cold the last couple of days so Ethan is continuing to practice his letters every chance he gets. He will write for a bit then say "yep. I'm learning." He sure is.

big boy room decor

Ethan was so excited to help decorate his new room. When we put up the stickers on the walls, he was in total heaven. Then I told him we needed to make some bigger pictures to put on the walls and when I ordered the book online he asked me daily if the mail lady was going to bring him his train pictures to put on the walls in his new big boy room. When the book finally did come, he loved putting together the pictures with me. The project didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but don't tell him that. He loves it and even helped me hammer in the nails to hang the canvas on. If I ever do it again, I'm totally using spray adhesive to glue it onto the canvas, but it will last as long as he'll be wanting it on his walls and that's all that matters. By the time he's old enough to notice how bad it looks, he'll be wanting new stuff on his walls anyway!

decor

Ombre glass decor.

I started saving glass bottles (Sbux frappuccinos and Izzy's) and made my own living room decor with a small sample from Walmart and left-over white paint we already had. I like the way they look!

Yep, this is the way our living room looks pretty much all the time. Toys scattered and drawers wide open. I don't fight it anymore. Hopefully the bottles just don't become play things as well :)

Letters and snowmen

Something clicked for Ethan yesterday and he started writing a few letters. I wish that I could say that it was because of me working with him, but no matter how many times I showed him how to make an E he had no interest in trying. Then all of the sudden I came downstairs yesterday and he says "mom, I made an E!" And sure enough he had done it all by himself, as well as a T and an H. Something clicked and he's obsessed with writing letters now. With some help he can also do A, M, X, and N. So close to writing his own name! 

Ephesians 6:1 in practice

As any normal 2 year old, Ethan provides me lots of opportunities to talk about obedience. The other day he wanted to go paint while his lunch was in the oven, so I reminded him that we only had about 15 min to go downstairs and paint, and then we needed to come upstairs again and get lunch. His attention span for painting is about that anyway, so I didn't think we'd have a problem.

He was finished with painting when I heard the oven timer go off so I told him it was time to go eat, and he immediately started telling me that he still wanted to play downstairs. We went back and forth a few times and just when I was going to stop the conversation and tell him it was time to go upstairs he stopped arguing and thought for a second. Then he said, "Ephesians 6:1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Ok, mom. I will obey you. Let's go upstairs." And he started up the stairs.

Wow, they really do understand more than we adults sometimes give them credit for. I know it hasn't fully sunk in what obedience means and why it pleases God when we obey, but he's getting what he's able to at this point. And I know that he will keep providing me plenty of opportunity to talk about it :)