19 Months!

Choo Choos!

Ethan loves climbing into the chairs at the table and having his snack like a "big kid"

Our newest toy- the vacuum cleaner!

Hanging out, eating snow

Looks like someone is ready for summer!

If I just shovel all of the snow in the yard, will spring come faster?

Ethan continues to keep us laughing!  At 19 months old, he is quite a little character!  He is extremely affectionate, and loves to just lounge around with us.  He is content to stay in his pajamas all day and play at home, but also loves seeing his friends at story time and playgroup and playing outside.  For the most part, he is a laid back guy! 

He is talking more and more.  His favorite phrase these days is, "Oh no!" It is the cutest thing because he says it with such passion.  He is talking a lot and trying to repeat whatever we say.  It's so much fun to be able to communicate with Ethan and have him communicate back.  We like watching the birds and squirrels outside on the feeders and when they go away, he looks at me, and holds his hands up and says,"All gone."  He is also loving music and has begun doing the hand motions that go along with particular songs.  His favorite is, "The Wheels on the Bus"  He loves to make the wheels go round, the wipers swish and the doors open and shut.  Such a big kid!

Ethan is making connections so often now.  The other day I had the vacuum cleaner out and he was eating cheerios.  He took his bowl of cheerios and poured them on the kitchen floor.  Then he went over to the vacuum cleaner, turned it on, and vacuumed up all of the cheerios!  Now whenever the vacuum cleaner comes out, Ethan needs to take a turn "cleaning".  He also remembers places and things that have happened.  For example, he fell off of a bench in the library last week.  Now, every time he sees that same bench, he points at it and says "boom boom" and "ouch".  Pretty adorable! 

We are anxiously awaiting spring.  We spent three hours outside one day this week.  Ethan played in the mud and snow, on the swing, and in the kiddie pool.  We are so ready for warmer weather and are so sad that we are getting more snow tomorrow! Spring has got to spring sometime, no?

No More Baby!

We visited the farm- here Ethan and Uncle Bob are hanging out with the llamas and alpacas

Ethan loves looking at pictures of his family!

Checking out the sheep cupcake that he and Daddy picked out for my birthday treat!

Check out the new kicks!!  He loves these new boots!

New favorite place to hang out- in the lego box!

The candles are lit on the cake- love his face in this shot

Blow!

Papa and Grandma

Uncle Bob and Auntie Margo watch the animal show at Jack's birthday party

Everything is right in his world- a lollipop and a birthday balloon

bowling!

Pete and I are amazed at just how much Ethan is changing from week to week!  It seems like a month ago we couldn't understand much of what he was saying, and now, he is talking like crazy. On a few occasions he has even put together two words.  Last night in the bathtub he said, "More bubble" and he says "oh boy."  He is a huge fan of the words, "more" and "again."  Smart guy!  He asks us to name everything- he'll hold up an object and wait for us to name it, and then he'll try to repeat what we say- sometimes it's only the first syllable, but other times he's able to repeat the whole word.  It just seems like over the course of a week or two his language has exploded.  I love hearing what he has to say!

As you can tell from the pictures, we've had a fun couple of weeks.  We celebrated my birthday and Ethan was able to practice his candle blowing skills.  Grandma and Papa Fowler visited, with my favorite cake in tow, and were good sports about lighting the candles about ten times so Ethan could blow them out again and again- he'll be an expert by the time his second birthday rolls around!

Over the weekend we also celebrated cousin Jack's birthday.  Ethan sat at the birthday table all by himself like a big kid and ate brownies and ice cream.  He hit the pinata with the rest of the kids and scored a lollipop from the fallen bounty!  Where did my baby go??!!  We finished off the festivities with a trip to the bowling alley.  Ethan loved watching all of the people and the flashing lights.  He pushed the ball down the lane once or twice with me, but was more interested in driving the cars in the arcade and hanging out and eating pizza with his Papa and Grandma and Aunts and Uncles. 

We are continuing to attend our weekly story time. Ethan's new tradition is that he'll go in, sit patiently through one story because he knows that after one story comes the graham cracker snack.  After he finishes his cracker, he gets up to leave because the train table is outside of the story room.  Last week, after we had our cracker and had left the story room, Ethan was playing with the trains.  There was a group of  boys clustered together trying to get back into the story room.  They were peeking through the glass door, banging on the window pane, trying to get back in.  Ethan watched them curiously as he continued to play trains.  Then he stopped, worked his way through the crowd, and within one second had pulled the door handle and opened the door to let all of the children back into the story room.  All of the moms looked at me in amazement- we're in big trouble with this one!  

Finally we went for Ethan's 18 month checkup today.  He continues to be between the 90 and 95 % for height and weight- he weighs 30 and 1/2 pounds, and is 34 and 1/2 inches long.  Our doc says he looks great and was very impressed by how much he understands!