What We've Been Up To...

Things have been pretty normal around here lately, which is a very welcome way for things to be in our opinions!!! I am still doing private tutoring for 3 hours in the morning during the week and Ethan is coming with me on the weeks when Tristan is working. When Tristan is off work, he and Ethan get to enjoy some daddy-son time while I'm working. I love seeing how Ethan's face lights up when his dad is playing with him! He truly loves his dad and I'm glad they get some time to be together while I'm working.

We have been having a lot of fun getting to know Ethan and watching him learn new skills. Here are some of the highlights from the last few months:

Ethan is currently mastering the art of sitting up on his own. We've had a few tipping incidents, but he usually manages to stay upright, but leaning sometimes. I often refer to him as the "Leaning Tower of Ethan"...We were practicing one night after his bath.

Here's something fun we've learned about Ethan: he love to examine things very intensely. He just holds things in his hands and stares at it and feels it. It's fun to watch him get so absorbed in the details.

We found a great deal on Craig's List on this ExerSaucer and it keeps him rather busy. Often I'll find him playing with the tiny white tag on the hanging arm--even with all of those toys surrounding him! He's so silly. He also notices tiny details on everything...strings on sweatshirts and sweatpants, zipper pulls and tags on pretty much anything.

I am still serving as the Young Women's President, so I have Mutual every Tuesday night. Tristan works at the Temple on those nights, so he comes with me to church on Tuesday nights and makes lots of new friends.

He finally moved into his "big boy" highchair. It's really nice to have him in a convenient chair, however, he gets distracted by the straps that hold him in and sometimes it prevents him from eating...so sometimes we have to unstrap him...like I said, all about the details.

He has been trying more solid foods and as you can see he is an avid little eater! So far he has tried rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, whole grain cereal, homemade sweet potatoes, homemade acorn and butternut squash, carrots, apples, bananas and prune juice. We are getting ready to venture into the land of green things, so let's hope he enjoys them as much as everything else so far!!
He's learning how to hold his bottle, although, I think he's perfectly satisfied with us doing it for him while he lounges and fills his belly!!!

The most recent thing we have discovered about Ethan is that he is very determined to get his hands on WHAT he wants WHEN he wants it! You can see here that he was determined to get that last little bit out of his bottle...and he succeeded...

...almost!!!
We love our little guy! He makes us laugh each day and we are loving getting to know him better.

Christmas!!

We were super excited to spend our first Christmas as a family. We had kind of a late night on Christmas Eve...we drove around to look at Christmas lights and then came home and had to bake some Monster Cookies for Santa. Thankfully, Ethan is still a little young to get up extra early because he is so excited for Christmas, so we got to sleep in a little.

Elephant p.j.s from Aunt Kelly, Uncle Justin and Anderson!

He loved opening presents, especially the books he received from both grandparents! He was actually more impressed with the gift wrap and liked crinkling it and trying to taste it.

Just relaxin' and watching a Christmas flick!!

He did enjoy the items that were in those packages once the unwrapping fun was over. His Grandma Bernard sent this elephant toy for him and once we introduced him to it he was not without it for the rest of the day! It's still one of his favorite toys right now! Even while watching a Christmas movie with his dad and me, he didn't let go of it!

Well, minus the drool it could have been a cute pic in front of our little Christmas forest! As you can see, he was still learning to hold up his big head, but he was getting so much better!!! We loved having Ethan as a part of our family this Christmas and look forward to many more fun memories!

Ethan's Fourth and Fifth month

My how time flies! I have been terrible at keeping up with the events during the holiday season! I have devoted myself to catching up, so here are some of the milestones Ethan has reached in the last couple of months:

We introduced Ethan to solid food right after he turned 5 months old. He has been pretty interested in anything that we happen to be holding, but he was especially interested in this bowl of food!

Getting ready for the first bite of solid food...

Not so sure about this new food...
After a few bites, he wanted to take over!

We did have some issues with the new texture...

and swallowing...
But in the end he was a happy boy! I bet he'll be really happy once he gets to start eating some foods with some flavor!

We took Ethan to the playground at our apartment complex to introduce him to the swing. I wasn't sure how he would like it considering that he hates his swing at home. But we were pleasantly surprised that he LOVED it and was cracking up most of the time!

As you know, tummy-time has been a dreaded event for Ethan from the beginning...we are finally making progress and he actually enjoys tummy-time now, especially since he can roll over to escape it now! We can't put him on his tummy without him rolling over within 5 seconds!

Five months old already!!! We can't believe how fast he's growing up!

Trip to Washington--Part 2

So, here we are for the second part of our trip home to visit our family. We were so excited when it started snowing while we were at church on Sunday! After church and a really nice family dinner with the Bernard family, we went to go see my family. We wanted to make sure to get some pictures in the snow since it was Ethan's first time seeing it. I have to say, he wasn't all that interested. I think he was just in climate shock!!

My parents with Ethan

He loved his new playmat that he got for Christmas.

Grandpa Walker lovin' on his grandson!
We took Ethan to see his Grandpa Bernard's grave while we were there visiting. Here are the Bernard boys!
Some of the Bernard family: Tristan, Ethan, Annette, Kelsey, and Desiree

We took the opportunity to take some family pictures while we were at the cemetery.

It was pretty cold out there!!
Here Ethan is, all bundled up with his Grandma Bernard!

This is a water feature at the cemetery which had completely frozen over. It was so neat to see it in solid ice!

We went down to the water front to check out the scenery. As you can tell, my body is not used to temperatures this cold any more!
We were so glad to take Ethan to meet his Uncle Kelsey, who just returned from his two-year mission in Argentina before he returned to college in January. After two years apart, these guys had a lot of lost goofing-off time to make up for!
Ethan loved getting to spend some time with all of his grandparents! We took a moment to get a picture of him with Grandma and Grandpa Walker in front of their Christmas tree. It was so wonderful to get to see our families so close to Christmas!