Oh What Fun It Is to Be 1!!

I can't believe it's been a year since this moment! A year ago, sweet Ethan joined our family.

Weighing in at 8 lbs. 10.2 oz. and 21 1/2 inches long, Ethan was a lot bigger than we expected!
He has been such a sweet, good-natured baby from the beginning!

One year later, here we are, celebrating our sweet boy on his first birthday! He has grown SO much. At his one year check up he weighed 24 lbs. 4 oz. and was 31 inches tall!

Here are some things we have come to know and love about Ethan:

• He is a great sleeper! He slept for 5 hour stretches starting at about 2 months and he started sleeping through the night at 6 months. He still sleeps very well, usually going to bed at 7:30 and sleeping until 7! We love that!
• He loves to eat! He is eating a lot of the same foods as us now and is great with finger foods. He especially loves cheddar bunnies (kind of like gold fish), yogurt, any kind of fruit and green beans.
• He laughs and laughs and laughs. He is so fun to play with and is just silly!
• Ethan LOVES books. Sometimes the apartment will get quiet while I'm out in the kitchen and 9 times out of 10 I know I'm going to find him in his room pulling books out of his book basket. He spreads them out all around him and just flips through the pages.
• He started walking about a month ago and is just taking off!
• He loves to "help" out around the house and prefers helping us to playing with his toys.
• He has recently started saying "Dad-dee" with purpose (it's sooo cute)!
• He uses baby sign language for "milk", "more", and "all done" on a regular basis. He just started using the sign for "eat" recently. We are still working on more signs.
• He is very social and dives into playing with other kids. He loves to watch other kids, too, and definitely is adventurous on toys and playgrounds.

We were so excited to celebrate Ethan's first birthday. Time for presents!

We found this collapsable tunnel on clearance at Target (I love that place!) while my mom was here visiting, so she decided to get it as a birthday gift for Ethan. He was so excited about this new toy.

Brave boy!

Opening his present from Grandma Bernard...He noticed the balls right away. He loves to chew on and play with any toy that includes balls.

Playing with his train
His present from Grandma and Grandpa Walker. He can't wait for dad to put it together!

So much fun!

Time for more fun with the tunnel!

We decided to just have a low key day and invite our friend Becky over. Tristan BBQed burgers and hot dogs and Ethan got to try his first hot dog. He though it was o.k., but wasn't overly impressed. Whenever Tristan is out on the porch doing anything, Ethan is glued to the windows watching him intently! He loves his daddy!

Learning how to grill
Time for cake!

This is about as into the whole cake thing he got. I think he just wasn't that hungry and we waited too long into the evening. He sure did enjoy licking the frosting off of his fingers, though!

Getting a little goofy leads to....

...this. I think this was the main reason why the cake didn't go over so well. We waited until after dinner and he was just tired from all of the partying! Poor guy!

After dinner we decided to open the last of the gifts--the ones from us and from Becky. Now, I promise you, I was NOT torturing him. He was just done for the day. It was a busy and overwhelming and he was ready for bed!
In true Ethan fashion, he was more interested in the packaging than the cool snap cubes from Becky...whatever makes him happy!

Looking at his cool animal book

An elephant book from Becky

His own cell phone! I really just thought this would prevent him from going after ours and the t.v. remote. So far it has worked!

Another book!! He especially likes this one because of the "touch and feel" parts!
Finally figuring out the whole unwrapping thing...All in all, Ethan was a trooper and a very happy birthday boy! He was definitely spoiled a little!

Despite all of the festivities going on, we managed to get out for a quick drive earlier that day so Ethan could give his forward-facing car seat a try!

Trying to figure out why things look different all of a sudden...
He really loves facing forward. I can't blame the kid...at least now he can feel the AC better in the car and see what's going on! Here's our BIG 1-year-old!
It was a fun day! We can't believe how fast this first year has flown by! We're so grateful for our sweet boy!

Home Alone!

The day before Ethan's first birthday, Tristan and I had our first baby-less date!!! Ethan was being a silly, silly boy that night so we had to take some pictures!

Here he is with our dear friend, Becky, a.k.a. "the babysitter"...we're not sure she REALLY knew what she was in for!
Tristan took me to The Melting Pot for an early birthday/anniversary dinner. We love going there, but only get to about once a year. It was nice to get to be alone on a date and actually focus on adult conversation--especially since Tristan was getting ready to work for 3 weeks straight! We really appreciated the help so we could have our first post-baby date night!
Ethan did great for Becky, but then again, he was in good hands!

Play Dates

We've enjoyed having a more laid-back schedule this summer and have especially enjoyed play dates with friends. Tuesdays have kind of become our days and we look forward to that time! A couple of weeks ago we went out to the water park at Tickfaw State Park. True to form, Ethan LOVED the water!

This week we went out to Jump n' Jive bounce house with our friends. Ethan really enjoyed getting around the big toys and playing with the other kids. Here he is playing in the bounce house with the balls...a whole new world of fun!

We went down the big slide together. It was quite a climb up to the top...and quite a drop to the bottom! Ethan laughed and smiled both times we went down.
He especially liked playing in the Little Tyke houses they had in the rooms. I think he spent most of his time in these (partly because it required less energy from me, too!).

Time for more inflatable fun!
Climbing and sliding all over

Faceplant!

Another little house to play in! Ethan loved walking in and out and opening and shutting the doors and windows.
Trying a smaller slide this time! He and Drew had some fun crawling around together.
Summer has been lots of fun and we have been enjoying our play dates with friends! We look forward to more as the school year kicks off again! We are so grateful for good friends.

Life With an Almost One-Year-Old

As always, life with an almost one-year-old is keeping us very busy! He is so full of energy and is always getting into something to play with or trying to "help" us with things around the house. Here's a quick debrief of our summer.

We decided to give Ethan his first birthday present early (by about a month) since he was showing so much interest in walking and standing. He loves pushing his lion around and listening to the music it makes!

Grandma Walker came down to visit in July and we got to spend some time relaxing at the pool. But we kept her pretty busy while she was here!

We've been spending a lot of time in the water during these HOT summer days. Grandpa Walker sent Ethan a fun toy to use during our pool-time! He looks a little uncertain here, but he actually really likes it!

It was finally time for an official first haircut. We decided to let Dad be the barber. Overall, Ethan did really well but he was uncertain at the beginning...

Who's that?

Daddy and his little man
The after shot

This is just a random pic of us one morning being silly! I love playing around with my boys!

Ethan loves to get into the spice drawer and play with the jars of spices. Lately, he has been favoring the bottle of Tabasco. This picture just cracks me up...I think the cajun food down here is rubbing off on him!
We started moving him to naps once a day when he started giving us trouble going to bed at night. In addition to that, I will be going back to home-schooling in a few weeks and on the weeks that he goes with me, he won't get a morning nap. I figured it was best to start weaning him off now, rather than after school starts. The first few days he really struggled to make it through lunch.

It's been fun giving Ethan lots of new foods to try and overall, he is a good eater! He seems like he's a bottomless pit these days!

Happy boy!
Tristan ordered a sample of some barley grass supplement that you add to juice...in the spirit of trying new things he decided to let Ethan have a try. Amazingly, he couldn't get enough. I think it was more because he liked drinking out of a glass, but either way it made for a good picture!
Ethan just loves the tongue depressors that his pediatrician gives him at his appointments to distract him. They usually stick around for a few days after his appointment and he likes to chew on them. What a weirdo! The laughs just never stop around here with two silly boys! Oh yeah, and there is one other important part of life with an almost one-year-old...hit play and see what fun we're having now!