Disneyland Baby!

I know this post is long overdue, but it took a while for me to get my hands on all the photos. My brother had quite a few of them and I just recently got a copy from him ... so here we go.

We headed out to sunny California a couple of days before Ethan's 3rd birthday in January. Mart always has the unlucky misfortune of getting sick every time we travel, so we prayed really hard that he would be fine this trip. It ended up being Ethan and Lincoln who were extremely sick. And by extremely, I mean EXTREMELY! By the time we got home, I started to become convinced that Ethan may have actually had the whooping cough. He sounded terrible and had a super high fever during the night so he didn't sleep all that well.

We decided to drive there, because it would just be easier with all of the stuff we needed to bring for a brand new 3 month old baby and Ethan. We packed my mom's Prius to the brim and headed out. The first day we drove to Mesquite and stayed the night, and decided to drive the rest of the way the next day. The first day of driving really wasn't that bad. Ethan would take medicine every pit stop and there wasn't a whole lot of crying going on until the last 30 minutes of the drive. The next day was pretty much torture. Ethan was crying, Lincoln was crying, I couldn't do anything to help them and was so overwhelmed, I started crying and Mart couldn't take it anymore and we had to pull over for a much needed just get out of the car break. We bought Ethan a popsicle and let him run wild for a little while which seemed to help a little.

We eventually made it ... hours after we had planned. I was so relieved that we would be there for just over a week and wouldn't have to face that drive again for several days.

Lets just skip the novel I could write and just tell some short facts.

*3 blessings later, Ethan finally started to feel a little better. He was at least able to function and wasn't burning up.
*We were so worried about Ethan getting lost, I gave in and bought a harness. (I'm totally anti child harnesses, but I convinced myself it was SO much better than losing him). He got it out of his system by getting lost the first day before we even went to the park. He was just running around the hotel. It was so scary. Thank goodness we found him after only 5-10 minutes of frantic searching.
*Despite being sick, Ethan had fun. That's what we wanted.
*Ethan loved the Buzz ride and would ask to go on it every morning when we woke up.
*It took Ethan about 3 days to warm up to the characters enough to even be willing to stand next to one for pictures.

These pictures are not in any particular order, that would take way too long.


Enjoying sunny California!


Jesse was the first character Ethan was willing to go stand next to. You can tell he's nervous, but he did pretty good.


Lincoln on the other hand, couldn't care less.


Ethan even managed a smile when Woody came out!


My mom and Debi took my boys for an afternoon so Mart and I were able to do some adult rides. We had to show off our mustaches. :)



This is the group we went with, minus a few people.



The last day in the park, we stood in line to meet Mickey Mouse in his house for a good half hour. Ethan walked up to him by himself! (He was definitely nervous, but he did it!)



Ethan loved riding Buzz with Mart and shooting the laser gun!






Grandma and Ethan on Dumbo! (I could only stomach this ride once or twice. I don't do well with spinning)



Ethan and "Toofy!"


Ethan loved the teacups too! (Of course it had to be a spinning ride). Mart was a champ and took him lots of times. I could only go once or twice.







Ethan had the most fun the day we let him just play in the water area with Jordan and Garrett. It was the most I had seen him smile all week long.




I love going to Disneyland and I love that now I can take my little family and watch Ethan while he experiences new things! I can't wait to go back!

Bloopers

I really need to get a good picture of my two boys together. It's rather difficult to say the least.
I thought trying to get Ethan to take a half decent picture was hard, but it's significantly harder with two of them. I am still trying to figure out how we are going to manage to get a decent family picture this summer. I guess I'll start praying now. :)

Instead of posting incredibly cute pictures of both of my boys being angels and smiling at me...I'll show you what life is really like at my house.

Failure #1: "Say Cheese and smile!" has now turned into some weird mouth, half open, smile thing. Hopefully he grows out of that one soon.



#2: This would have been a perfect one, had Lincoln actually been looking.


#3: No idea what they were looking at.


I guess for now, this one will have to do. It's the best I could get. Even though they have the attention span of a bread crumb, I guess their cuteness will have to make up for them not paying attention.

Helper

Every six months or so, we pull out all our water jugs from down in our storage room, dump them out and refill them with water and bleach. It's not a very fun task, but this time Ethan loved helping. He thought it was great fun filling all the milk jugs back up with the hose.



He even wore his helmet for safety. :)


Or maybe he was riding his cute new tricycle right before helping.
Next general conference (water change out time), I definitely know who I am going to have help.

Best toy ever!

Who needs toys...when you have a box?

I've said this time and time again, but sometimes I wonder why I buy Ethan toys. He doesn't play with them all that much. He generally prefers a box. The bigger the better!



And what fun is a box without an Aunt and cousin to get it in with you??

Clean?

I think not.

Ethan hasn't mastered the whole keep yourself clean while doing anything skill yet. In fact, if he is still clean by the end of the day, there is something terribly wrong.

Example:

Dinner the other night





Spaghetti night, Ethan always eats with no clothing on. It's just easier to clean him up that way!
This is a little on the extreme side of him being dirty, generally he doesn't get his face covered quite this bad. I think George was playing with him while he was eating. He was distracted. :)

Messy face or not, I'll still keep him!

Big Cheeks

I was playing with Ethan one day and he would fill his little cheeks up with as much air as he could, and then being the good mom that I am ... I would squish his cheeks so he made a funny noise. He liked it so much, that we did it all day long. :)

Ethan trying to do it to himself:


Dad's turn:


Mama helping Ethan:


Mama's turn:


Simple game, but he was very entertained. He thought it was great fun.

6 months!

I can't believe my baby is already 6 months old! It has gone by so fast.

Weight: Approx. 14lbs 6 oz
Getting close to being double his birth weight!

I had to postpone his 6 month appointment until later this month, so I won't have an accurate weight and height until he's closer to 7 months.

Milestones:
-He wears size 3-6 month clothes, but can fit into specific 6-9 month items. He's a tiny boy!
-He wears size 2 diapers..but honestly can still fit into a 1. I only moved him up because I didn't think he'd stay in size 1 long enough to go through another box of diapers, but I was probably wrong.
-He's a pro at rolling over and likes to spin in circles when he does it.
-He started eating solids and only dislikes peaches so far. He does okay with peaches only when mixed in with oatmeal. He seems to really like everything else though!
-He adores Ethan and watches him all day long. His face always lights up when Ethan talks to him.
-He's a major Mama's boy, which is really fun for me .. especially considering Ethan is major Dad's boy.
-He occasionally will lean in and suck on my cheek giving me kisses. He doesn't do it very often, or to very many people.


Mama Milestone: I am still breastfeeding him and I am so very proud of myself! I only made it 3 months with Ethan, and it wasn't even exclusively. It was only sporadic supplementing ... The only time Lincoln has ever had formula in his short little life is when he wouldn't eat in the hospital and they threatened to put him in the nicu if I didn't allow them to give him formula to bring up his glucose levels ... lame. He was just fine.

He is such a sweet little spirit and I love having him in my family! I can't imagine life without him.

Potty Training Fun

We have been working on potty training Ethan for quite some time. It's slow moving, probably because he's such a busy boy and doesn't like to slow down for anything. He is doing really well and I just keep hoping that he'll get the hang of it all the way soon. Until then, at least it's not as hard as the first week was!

He gets a little bored going to the bathroom every half hour or so and one day he was totally goofy and wouldn't stop putting his clean underwear on his head! (Thanks for that one George!)





I guess these will be just a few more pictures to add to my "black mail" or "embarrassing photos" pile for the future. :)

Laundry

Laundry is such a dreaded task about my house. I keep up on the washing really good, in fact it's rare when my dirty laundry basket gets full...it's the folding and putting away that gets to me. When we finally have to break down and fold, and fold, and fold ... and fold ... it seems to take far too long.

This sight seemed to help make it a little better though. At least someone likes the laundry!