Easter

Easter was Ethan's last weekend as an only child. Mimi came into town on Friday and we had a weekend full of Easter activities centered around him! Monday morning and Baby Caden's arrival was going to come all too quickly!

Dying eggs with Mimi

Before Church

Ethan and Daddy before church


Mother's Day Out
Ethan before his Mother's Day Out Easter Party and Egg Hunt

Mommy and Ethan at the party. We had not practiced hunting eggs before the party, but he was a champ and caught on very quickly!

Ethan and Keller at the party. Baby Cannon was on his way when this picture was taken!

The Shores Egg Hunt

Curious about the Bounce House

Testing it out...

Hula Hoop fun!

Family picture

Mimi helping Ethan find eggs

All by himself!

Waiting for the egg hunt to begin. He's ready!!

Daddy and Ethan on the slide. He loved it!!!

Easter Morning

Hut!! Hut!! Football shaped easter eggs! Of course, he's more interested in those than what was in his Easter pail.

This boy LOVES books!

Children's Museum

This post is a little out of order, but last weekend Daddy gave Mommy a much needed break and took Ethan to the Children's Museum at Fair Park. This left Mommy and Caden with some naptime! It was blissful and Daddy and Ethan had a blast! Here are just a few of the 150 pictures that Daddy took. Ben said that the excitement and look on his face when he saw something new was priceless! There will definitely be a return trip in the future when baby Caden gets a little bit older.

It's Almost Time!

Ethan's new little brother will be here soon and we are READY! I still have to finish packing our bag, but overall if he decides to come tomorrow we would be thrilled! Ethan came at 37 weeks which is exactly where we are at now. Knowing that we technically have 3 more weeks does NOT make me feel good because the "Ethan feet" have appeared and I am exhausted all of the time!

I did decide to get a pedicure tonight just to encourage him a little :-)

Out-ide

Watching the boats!

Wearing his sunglasses just like Daddy

Making sure the grass is mowed

What a little boy with his hat on backwards!

Peek-a-boo!

Ethan's favorite word right now is "out-ide" and we are most certainly taking advantage of it with the beautiful weather that we have been having. We have been spending most of our time playing in the backyard and having a blast! Throwing in a few trips to the park and a visit to the harbor, we have definitely made the most of the last week of 70-80 degree weather.

Locked Out

The other day we decided to go to the park. Ethan was so excited and kept saying "ride, ride" because he wanted to ride in the stroller. So, while Ben and I were getting things together, Ethan decided to climb up in the stroller and close the tray over him so that he was ready to go! We hadn't strapped him in yet, but he wanted us to know he was ready. I went out to the garage to get a couple of bottles of water and Ben went out to the back porch to get the soccer ball, then we were going to be on our way. Well, when I went back to the door to go inside, the door was locked. So, I went around to the back porch where Ben was and tried the back door...it was locked, too.

Although Ethan has not figured out how to open the doors, he has figured out how to lock and unlock the door knobs. Of course, all of the windows were locked, we did not have a spare key anywhere, and our cell phones were inside. Even though I knew that Ethan could let us back in, I began to panic because he had already closed the tray over him in the stroller and I didn't know if he could get out of it. I really did not want to break a window, especially considering that we are just renting this house, but I could feel my blood pressure rising! As we begin to knock on the door to ask Ethan to come help Mommy and Daddy, all we can hear is "ride, ride." Then Ethan figures out that he's in the house by himself and begins to scream. So Ben went around to the garage to knock on the door and ask Ethan to come help Daddy. After hearing him scream for what seemed like forever, Ethan was able to get himself out of the stroller and go unlock the door for Daddy. We made it to the park and the crisis was over...but the next day, there were several copies of keys made!

Ethan's visit to Groovy's Cuts!

At 19 months, we have had a couple of haircuts already. However, these have been from Maw-Maw. Each time his hair has been cut, he has cried huge crocodile tears and you would have thought that he was being tortured.

Today, Daddy took him for his first visit to Groovy's. I politely told Ben that this was a great opportunity for a Father-Son outing because I truly did not want to have to endure the screamfest :-) So while I took my last trip to Canton for a very long time(due to impending arrival of Baby Caden) with some great friends from church, Daddy and Ethan went for a haircut. Ben called me as soon as they were finished and told me how great he did! No tears and completely curious about everything that was going on around him- I couldn't believe it! And like a good Daddy, he even remembered to document the big day with pictures!

Buttons to press! You can't beat that!

Evidently, he spent most of his time turning around to see what was going on behind him as well. I'm sure that this made the lovely lady's job so much more fun for her!

Look at this shy little innocent face!

The final product: No smile, but no tears!

Success!!!

Snow...again

Here's a photo of Ethan one year ago when we had last year's big snow. It's hard to believe that he has grown so much in one year!

On a side note, I have been without a computer for a few weeks, so blogging has been impossible. WOW, you never know how much you rely on something until you don't have it! Anyway, we have been in our new house for a little over a month now and are completely settled in. It is literally half the square footage of our old house and we LOVE it! Ben and I have both decided that when we move back home, we would love to to find a house that is just a little bigger than this one (a little more room would be nice :-) Ethan loves having everything so easily accessible to him and us so close. He roams around the whole house and is comfortable even when we are out of sight, which I absolutely love! In our old house, he always stayed close and never wanted to be too far away from us.

During last week's big snow, Ethan and I started to get baby Caden's room ready for him! I think he loves playing in there as much as he does in his own room, especially on the days that Daddy works from home in his office right across the hallway. I love seeing his growing independence and the little boy (no longer a baby, sniff sniff) that he is becoming!

As we have had snow twice now in the past 2 weeks, we have had quite a lot of inside time and a few PJ days. These days are the best!
Of course, we did take some time to get bundled up and go outside and play with Daddy and Lucy! He didn't know what to think of all of the layers Mommy kept putting on him!

Ethan was a little intimidated by the snow at first, but as soon as Daddy grabbed his hand he was all about exploring!

Sweet Picture!

Getting his snow feet!

He even made Mommy open up the sand table so he could get out some toys to play with. Sand...snow...it works the same!

Lucy was absolutely hilarious! We have about 25 pictures of her running and jumping around in the snow! You would think that she had never been out in it before. Even though it's not a great picture, we have also had some great play time with Alex! They are starting to interact with each other in a way that they never have before and Leigh Ann and I just love it!

I also found a couple of random Christmas pictures that I just had to post! These were on the other camera and I didn't even realize they were there until last night.

Mimi and Ethan

Uncle Chad, Aunt Ashley, and Ethan