Garden Update

My garden is getting huge and I am loving it! I have turned into Mrs. Greenthumb! I enjoy watching everything grow and be able to actually eat what I'm growing. This is what's up in the garden: I have 19 tomatoes on my Brandywine plant and about 5 on my Bush plant, my other two are being stingy and are just flowering right now. My herbs are delicious and holding strong. I've been cooking with them all the time and they make my recipes so fresh. I did have to pull out all my cilantro since it was basically done and the guy at the nursery said it's mostly a spring time plant. I replaced it with a cucumber plant that my mom got me. It's got one little cucumber on it, so cute. So that is what's up in the garden department. Someday I would love a huge garden that I could spend a lot of time in and grow lots and lots of different things. That would be my dream, but for now I'll enjoy my raised bed garden.

Latest Cross Stitch Project

I've decided to just go ahead and cross stitch all my kids birth records now while I have the time and energy. If you look back in my archives around November you can see the one that I did for Ethan. It took me such a long time to do his since I was working while I was pregnant and towards the end of my pregnancy I had carpel tunnel so bad that I couldn't even hold a pencil, let alone a needle. So I'm going to just go ahead and do them now. I love to cross stitch and I've been doing all sorts of little projects here and there, but they're mostly to relieve stress, not to display so I figured it would be better to actually work on something that I have planned on doing. Here the one I'm working on right now and my progress so far. I've been working on it for about 1 1/2 weeks now. It's quite a large project so it's going to take quite awhile for me to finish so you'll bee seeing my progress throughout the upcoming weeks.

Top of My Cupboards

I found a few things for my cupboards at Hobby Lobby that were on sale and I just couldn't pass them up! I still have to find a few more things to finish the tops of my other cupboards, but one step at a time. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Catch Up

I have been so reclusive when it comes to blogging lately. I've pretty much been on my own everyday for the past 4 weeks (including weekends) because Ry has been working so much. He usually gets home around 10 at night so it's just been Ethan and me all day long, everyday. Needless to say I've been a little frazzled and just haven't been able to blog much. It would end up just being a vent session. So things have been better this week and I've actually seen my husband for more than 30 minutes before he falls asleep. The past 4 weeks have also been full of rain so no pool time! Boring! You can only go to the library, mall, or grocery store so much. So that is my excuse for not blogging very much.

I Rock!

My good friend Hilarytagged me as one of her "rockin" blogs and I so appreciate the compliment. You have to know that Hilary is the one that inspired me to start a blog and totally helped me get everything going. Thanks Hilary, your blog rocks! Now I get to share the love and list a few of my faves:
First off is Carly. She is so creative and very stylish! I love her headers, photos, and projects. She always has great ideas and fun sites to visit.
Second is my best nursing buddy Barbie. She's currently getting her new house put together and working in the ER so she always has great stories. I love her sense of humor and it really comes through on her blog! I love it! Plus, her little guys Dave is super cute!
Next is my friend
Kaitlyn She's a great scrapbooker and I love what she does! Her kids always have something funny going on and her blog is always fun to read.
And last of all my Aunt Nancy's Family blog. I am so happy they started a blog so I can keep up with all their family happenings. My cousins are so cute!
Well, those are a few of my favorites. Of course there are some of my favorite blogs that I lurk on occasionally but I won't share those here since I can't actually admit that I lurk. Well, enjoy some new blogs, you guys rock!

Ethan's First Embarrassing Moment

Ryan had some meetings before church so Ethan and I were solo this morning. As we were walking into church, Ethan saw Ryan and got so excited that he started running down the hallway. Well, as he was running towards Ryan, Ethan's pants fell down all the way to his ankles (just like an old man on America's Funniest Home Videos), he tripped on his pants and then face plants on the floor. He did this in front of me, Ryan, and 3 sister missionaries and we all started busting up. Well, he just laid there with his face on the floor, his diaper totally exposed, his pants around his ankles, and his legs stretched out like a frog. When I bent down to pick him up he was totally crying and he kept hiding his face in my neck. He was totally embarrassed and he didn't want any of the sister missionaries to look at him. It was so funny, cute and sad all at the same time. Poor Ethan!

New Website

I found a cute website called5 minutes for mom. It has great giveaways and fun things to see. Check it out on my sidebar.

Rain Rain Go Away!

I swear we will be floating away with all this rain! It seriously rains every single day and it's always a torrential downpour! Every night we have severe thunderstorms and last night was the loudest. The house was shaking, I was totally freaked, and of course I was having dreams of our house getting struck by lightening and burning to the ground. Our yard is totally squishy and is really really long, but we can't mow it since it's way too wet. My garden loves all the rain though and it is totally growing a ton and all the rain keeps it a little cooler than our usual humid/heat blast. I just wish it would be sunny long enough for us to go swimming. Our neighborhood pool is closed due to flooding and the chemicals are off balance and my parents pool overflowed yesterday! They had to syphon off a ton of water all night long and I think my mom is doing it again this afternoon. This year is the most amount of rain on record and I totally believe it. It has been crazy!

My Friend is a Winner!

My friend Kaitlyn sent in an entry for a scrapbooking website contest and she won! I'm so excited for her so I wanted to give her a little plug on my blog. The page is so cute! If only I could do anything remotely cool like that! Go Kaitlyn!

New Feature

Check my sidebar for my latest feature that I've add to my blog, "What's New On My I Pod." I have a few itunes cards to use so I was surfing for some new music this weekend. I found a few oldies but goodies like Whitney Houston. I totally remember winning her tape during a magazine drive in 1st grade. That song brings back a lot of fun childhood memories like driving around in our blue Aerostar Mini Van. Like the one featured below except ours was two tones of blue. Talk about flashbacks! Any music recommendations? Let me know!

Blackberry Picking!!!

I found an awesome place to go pick blackberries in one of our local magazines and the blackberries are ripening like crazy! My mom and I planned on going on Monday, but with all the rain we've been having, it was too muddy and the berries weren't ripe enough. We rescheduled for this Saturday so Ry could go too, but he ended up having to work (for the 2nd week in a row). Well, my parents came up really early and got E all packed up and we got to the berry patch by 7:30. Almost all of the plants are thorn less so the berries are really easy to pick and the berries practically fell into my bucket. The people there were super nice and are out there to answer any questions and tell you how to pick them properly. They were nice enough to let me take Ethan in the stroller so I didn't have to chase him around the farm. It was only $15 for a heaping gallon of berries or $18 for already picked berries. The weather was perfect, Ethan was really good, and they let you eat as you pick so I was in heaven! We went out for breakfast afterwards and stopped by the grocery store to get our jam supplies. When I got home I spread a bunch of berries on a sheet pan and put those in the freezer and the rest I smashed and made freezer jam. So good! Enjoy the pictures and please realize it was 7:30 in the morning and I have no make up on. Oh, and for any of you guys in the area, if you're interested in going to pick blackberries just post a comment with your e-mail and I can send you all the details. It was really fun!

File Folder Games

Thanks to a tip from my friend Hilary a few months ago, I've started my library of File Folder Games and I'm currently working some new ones. I made a bunch when I first got the book and now Ethan's gotten a little tired of doing the same ones so I'm making some different games to spark his interest. These are really great as quiet games for church or to just play at home. It's a good activity to teach him to sit in a chair and work on something too. The previous games that I did were matching shapes, dressing a teddy bear, and Noah's ark (animals). This time we're doing some that works with colors, fruits and vegetables, and items in "Grandma's Purse." Really cute. It doesn't take too much time and all it entails is getting photcopies, coloring, cuting stuff out, laminating, and attching velcro. Not too strenuous. Plus, I love to color stuff with Ethan so it's fun to do together. And when it's all done, "Voila", quite child. Check it out.

Awesome!

I went over to my friend Jen's house since both of our hubbies were out of town. She made us some delicious mac and cheese (E ate 3 bowls) and then the kids played together. Ethan started splashing in the bird bath out back so Jen snapped a few pictures of him and this is what we got. Jen is an awesome photographer! She's done all kinds of work in photography back in Vegas and it shows. To tell you the truth, I don't think she even used photoshop for any of these either. I'll have to ask her.

Mondays

For the whole month of June, E and I have been going to a toddler class every Monday. They set up all kinds of mats, tunnels, tents, and stuff for the kids to crawl and jump on. Then there are cars to ride on and all sorts of balls. The kids have about 30 minutes of free play where they can just go and do whatever they want. Then we do story/song time and then they do an activity. After that it's stickers and bye byes and I usually give Ethan a snack and drink for the ride home. E loves his toddler class, whenever we get there he always says "play, play, play" over and over. These pictures are some that I took yesterday. The first one is E singing while he's playing with a lego car and the second one is just one of him driving the car.

After the toddler class I always come home and clean. Mondays are always my house cleaning/laundry day and it helps to have E really happy so I can get a lot of work done. I like to get it all done in one day and then I just have to maintain it for the rest of the week. I really feel nice and organized after Monday and it just feels like the rest of the week flows easily. Ever since I've read that Home Comforts book, it's just all made sense. Anyway...gotta love Mondays.

Giving a Talk

I just finished reading through my talk that I'm giving tomorrow in church. The dreaded "new move in speaking assignment" has been handed down and I will speaking with my lovely husband tomorrow. I get kind of nervous before I speak, but I really don't mind the actual speaking part. The part that I don't like is all the awkwardness afterward. A few of you may actually agree with me on this one...I just hate the onset of comments throughout the rest of church, "hey great job", "loved the talk", "you did great", blah blah blah. Sometimes I wonder if people truly feel like you did a good job or they just see you in hallway after and feel obligated to say something. Now I do have to say that I can tell the super sincere comments are real, it's just those other random ones that get me. Anyone else feel this way? I also hate the whole "sit and stew" part of giving talks. You get your little assignment a week, 2 weeks, a few days before you give your talk and then you "sit and stew" about how you'll talk about it, researching with a big pit in your stomach. I always feel tons better once I get it actually written, but it's even better when you sit down and it's over. Anyway...I'm speaking tomorrow so be grateful it's me and not you.

Super Mario

I found this video on You tube tonight and I had to put it up. If only I could be that cool and be able to play sweet songs like Mario Brothers. I do have a funny story that goes along with playing songs from Nintendo... Back when we were living in California, before we even had Ethan, Ryan and I were going out to play games with some of our friends. As we were walking out of our apartment, we heard somebody playing the flute and their apartment just happened to face the parking lot. Well, we listened for a second and figured out they were playing the theme song from Mario Brothers so we stopped and listened for a bit and we started cracking up. Who practices Mario songs with their flute on a Friday night? We thought it was so funny and joked about it that whole next week and would walk by their apartment on purpose just to see if the "flutist" was playing some more renditions of Mario. Well, that next Friday we were going back out again and there was music coming from the flute apartment and this time it was the Zelda theme song! You have to understand that the whole first month of our marriage we spent trying to beat Zelda. Not even joking, we were Nintendo junkies. I'd like to paint a little visual for you...I had printed off the Zelda map from a website so we each took turns navagating and beating level after level, late into the night, night after night. It was so much fun! Thank goodness for 10:00 class, right? So to hear the lovely Zelda music, it took us right back. Anyway...the flutist is still a big joke in our family so finding some Nintendo music on You tube made me think of our favorite apartment music.

Our Little Golfer

Ethan has loved playing with his golf clubs ever since he could pick one up and he loves them even more lately. He carries them around with him all the time. Whenever Ry gets home from work he always runs to get his golf ball and club so Daddy can play with him. Ryan even taught him to make a swish sound when he hits it and then follow through. It is so funny to watch him! I'll have to get a video of it sometime.

My Garden is Growing!!!

Things in the garden have been going quite well these days. I was a little worried for awhile since my parsely looked just the same as when I bought it and something started to eat two of my tomatoes, but things are looking up. I have 3 tomatoes starting to turn red, my basil is huge, my cilantro has been crazy, the parsely looks way better, and my rosemary is turning into a bush. It's awesome. I've used all of my herbs in one way or another in my cooking these past few weeks and it has been so nice. I've even been able to pass some herbs along to friends and even got some fresh salsa in return. Sweet! So yummy! Here is a picture of my lovely little garden.

Fun Day!

Today was quite the day for us! First off we went to cousin Ty Ty's birthday party at their awesome waterpark! Ethan had so much fun running through the fountains/waterfalls and swimming with all his cousins.
This is Ethan and Ty Ty playing in the water/sand area. Ethan totally wore himself out so I had to keep tickling his toes the whole way home so he wouldn't go to sleep. It wasn't easy. He went down for a nap after that and I went off to the grocery store since we have no fresh food or milk. I didn't go before girls camp since I wasn't cooking those days and I put it off after I came back. I usually go during the week with Ethan since it's a fun thing for us to do together, but I decided the brace the weekend crowds so I could have extra pool time this week. Anyway...my parents were in the area so they stopped by with their electric gardening shear things and clippers. They helped us spare our poor, storm torn tree and get us going on our hedge trimming. Ethan really wanted to help so we let him hold it when we were done.

It was my dad's birthday on Tuesday so we went out for dinner to celebrate and afterward we went to the sporting good store so my dad could look for stuff for his new bike. Ethan loved playing with all the balls, golfing, riding bikes, and jumping on the exercise trampolines.
We had to pull him out of the store kicking and screaming. Now he's had a bath and is in bed after a very very fun day.

Girls Camp

I just got back from Girls Camp tonight and I am TIRED! Our stake camp director asked me to go up as the camp nurse for 2 days so I went up yesterday and began my "rotation." I mostly passed out meds and taped up some injuries last night and treated some fire ant bites. A few of the girls ran into some rattlesnakes, but fortunately I didn't have to treat any rattlesnake bites, yikes! Last night one of the leaders had to go home so they needed an extra leader to stay with the 2nd years. I was supposed to sleep in the stake cabin, but I offered to go stay with the girls. I probably slept less than 2 hours, but that's what Girls Camp is all about, right? Today was the big hike so I got morning meds passed and dispensed some band aids and stayed at the dining hall in case of an emergency. While the girls were on the hike I got to do some of the crafts they were doing. So cute! Their theme was "Peace, Love, and Understanding" so they did a vinyl lettering craft to display their theme. Fun fun. The girls did great on their hike and we only had a few falls to treat. We all headed to the "BLOB" after the hike to go swim. The blob is one of those air filled things that goes out on the lake and one person jumps into it and then crawls to the end and then another person jumps and blobs the first person into the water. It was so fun! I set up a "mobile nurse unit" down at the lake so I could go swim with the girls and blob with the leaders. Overall, Girls Camp was really fun and I was so glad that the girls were really safe and we didn't have too much medical drama while I was there.

Ethan and Dad

This is just a cute picture of Ethan and Daddy.

Bowling

I picked up Ethan a bowling set the other day and now it's his favorite toy to play with. Nanny and Papa came up the other day and got to be there for his first bowling experience. It was so cute! He will throw the ball and if it doesn't hit anything he'll say "miss!" and if he gets it he'll say "yipee!" We're trying to get him to say strike, but no luck there yet.

New Sunday Outfit

Macy's had some great sales going on during Memorial day and I picked up this whole outfit for Ethan for $7. Yes, for the ENTIRE outfit. He looks so cute in it and it makes his blue eyes even more blue.

Blog Update

Sorry for my lack of blog posts, what's my problem?! We've been busy with things here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. We had crazy storms come through lately and one storm completely blew over the top of one our trees. You should have seen me out there trying to cut it down with hedge clippers. I swear the Direct TV guy across the street was cracking up. We may have to remove the whole thing if the HOA doesn't approve of our topless tree.
Friday was our ward activity night, Ry and I were on the panel for the "Newlywed game." It was a lot of fun especially since we won! Booyah! Good thing Ryan knows how many purses I own and what's my favorite night time snack.
Saturday was my sister-in-law's birthday. We started the day off with a morning at the spa. We both got one hour massages, that was phenomenal! The lady told us we looked like a bunch of slugs afterwards, which we did. I could have crawled in a hole and stayed there for a week! I got home and counted down the minutes before Ethan took a nap so I could lay down. It was the most restful nap I have ever had in my life! Anyway...later that evening we went to Cheesecake Factory and did a little shopping to complete the big birthday. Quite a fun day!
This week should be a good one. I'm teaching piano lessons now to my niece and nephew so I have my first lesson this week. Wish me luck! Oh, and I'm also headed to Girls Camp for a few days to fill in for the camp nurse. Hopefully I'll only have to deal with some sunburns and slivers. So that's all we've been up to. I'll post some better stuff later.

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!