Christmas Eve 2010

We starte off the day on Christmas Eve making cookies for Santa. This year we made Snickerdoodles and Ethan even helped out!

We spent our evening driving around looking at Christmas light in some nearby neighborhoods. It's good to get out and turn up the Christmas music and see all the pretty Christmas displays. Ethan couldn't see much from his carseat, but he enjoyed the music and the ride!

We ended Christmas Eve by opening the boxes that our parents had sent to us for Christmas morning. Ethan was just as excited by the styrofoam inside the boxes as he was about the gifts!

Christmas Day 2010

We had a lot of fun creating family traditions this year, now that Ethan was old enough to participate in them.

Santa came to our apartment! Here's Ethan checking out his gifts from Santa.

He loves his table and chairs!

Getting ready to open presents

Legos from Santa!

Opening presents!

Ethan loved the elephant pillow pet that his Grandma and Grandpa Walker sent him!

We love the holiday season and all of the fun that it brings our family and for the opportunity we have to reflect on the birth and life of our Savior.

Life Since Halloween

Since Halloween, things have been busy around here but we find time to relax when we can. The weather stayed pretty nice until mid-November, so we enjoyed the cool mornings with our doors and windows open. Tristan liked to sit out on the porch and eat breakfast on occasion. Ethan, well, he just mooched off his dad!

We introduced Ethan to crayons one afternoon and he really took to it! Here's dad teaching him how.

Coloring with Dad

What do you do when you can't decide on a color? Use them all!
Trying to get the hang of it...

We continue to meet up with friends almost weekly for playdates. One day we went to Lindsey's Bouncing Tigers Bounce house. They have a lot of really neat toys, but it took Ethan a while to warm up to it. I think he'll enjoy it more when he's a little older!

Going down the slide alone
What a smile!

Boys being boys!

He still love books, and especially loves to flip through the pages of his scriptures (let's hope he feels the same way later!).
One day he was eating spaghetti noodles and he literally had them hanging off the back of his head...I was cracking up!

My two silly boys
He sure keeps us busy!

Halloween (Finally!)

Yes, I know there are only 9 days until Christmas...but I have to post Halloween pictures! If for no other reason so our parents can see Ethan's costume. So here goes:

I was looking forward to Halloween all year with the hopes of an elephant costume for Ethan. My friend, Robin, made it a reality and I couldn't wait until Trunk-or-Treat at church to see him run around in it. This is how that morning started:

Ethan found my hot chocolate leftovers in the garbage and indulged a little...

How can you be mad at this face?
We headed over to the Trunk-or-Treat later that evening. For some reason he always has no expression in moments like these...but I promise you he was having a blast!

I loved how his little tail looked whenever he bent over...what a cute little man!

I finally caught him when he stopped moving!!!

We had to take a moment to get a picture with his good buddy, Drew. They are both sooo tired by this point!

His "I'm tired" face after a long night of trunk-or-treating
We had a pretty low-key evening on Halloween. We went to church in the morning and spent the afternoon with Becky at our apartment. We had painted pumpkins earlier in the month, but needed to put the finishing touches on Ethan's pumpkin still. So my brilliant idea was that we should put Ethan's handprint on his pumpkin this year...I would NOT recommend it. It was super messy and didn't work out that well, but we tried!

Becky joined us for the festivities (I'm pretty sure he's pointing to his pumpkin here).

Family pumpkins--2010
We decided to dress him up again and let him run around the apartment complex a little. He is so excited to be an elephant (or to be outside...but I'm guessing he's excited to be an elephant)!

By the time we tried to take a family photo Ethan was tired, hot (the joys of Fall in the south--random hot days) and didn't want to sit still. Oh well, maybe next year!

Feeding dad a mummy dog
Ethan loved carrying his pumpkin around

Ethan showing off his pumpkin

A busy day calls for a BIG drink of water! He loves drinking out of the straw on my water bottle.
Halloween was lots of fun and we look forward to many more celebrations as a family!

More Fall Fun

I was really looking forward to Halloween this year to see how Ethan liked being in costume and trick-or-treating. But before we could do any of that, we had to get pumpkins!!! We decided to go to our local fruit stand again because we were a little crunched for time. I think Ethan was overwhelmed by all of the orange "balls".

He just kept saying, "ball" as he looked around!

Trying to be a strong boy

Pictures with mom and dad

We have really enjoyed getting to plan playdates with our friends, especially since the weather has been so beautiful. We decided to meet up with some friends at the Baton Rouge Zoo one afternoon. This was actually before our trip to the New Orleans Zoo, but it was still another great day to be outside and looking at the animals.

Standing on tippy toes to see into the tank

The tigers were so much fun that day...they were playing with each other and hiding and attacking each other...it was a great day at the zoo! After playing for a little while this tiger needed to take a rest in the shade! I love how Ethan's mouth is open in this picture!
Turtle pond!!!

My big boy walking and snacking

The giraffes were definitely a highlight of the day. It came right over to us and was letting the kids feed it leaves and grass and even pet it! We could have stayed there all day enjoying this beautiful creature!

After the petting zoo-like experience with the giraffe, we headed off to the actual petting zoo! At first I had to fight to get his attention on the animals instead of their droppings, but eventually he came around.

I think he was trying to decide if they were dogs (his favorite) or not...

He seemed like such a big boy as he wandered around just petting the goats.
We ended our day by stopping at the playground so the kids could run around and get all worn out!
It was a great day with good friends! This kid can't get enough of the zoo!