Friends!

Ethan poses with his new moose and tie dye shirt from our weekend in NH

Sand!

Ethan and Sam relaxing at Ogunquit beach

Friends swinging

Ethan loved this wading pool with fountains at a local park

The boys cooling off

Dads

Mia and Ethan in Freedom, NH

Playing with trucks

Lobster!  Kind of hard to explain this one once we were eating these guys!

Deep in conversation on the dock

We've had lots of opportunities over the past few weeks to visit with good friends.  It's so much fun to watch Ethan interact with other kids- even more fun for me to watch him play with the children of  good friends that I've known forever.  Hopefully we are fostering good friendships for him that will last for a really long time!

Ethan continues to chat away.  Three word sentences have become typical.  He likes to tell us stories.  The other day he was telling us all about what animals live in the barn.  Interestingly, the goats were not allowed in the barn- he made this very clear!  Pigs, cows, dogs, and so on were just fine- just not goats! 

It's also fun to hear what he recalls from activities that we've done and people we've seen.  He always talks about swimming with his "turtle" (his swim float) and running on the beach.  When I ask him questions to see what he remembers from outings, it always surprises me how much he retains.  After our friends Andrea, Joel, Sam and their dog Otis left, he kept talking about how Sam, "the mom" and "the dad" and their dog "Oto" went "bye bye."  Funny that he recognizes that other kids have moms and dads.  Pete and I are definitely, "Mama" and "Dada" and everyone else's parents are "the mom" and "the dad."

The word of the week is,"self."  Ethan doesn't want help with anything.  When we offer our assistance he states, "self" in a very matter of fact voice.  All of this "self" stuff is a little nerve wracking!  He wants to go down the stairs standing up by himself, and eat the most staining foods all by himself!  I'm so proud to watch him find more independence every day- even if it does mean that we'll be scrubbing stains out of our carpet after meal time!

I'm having a little but of trouble processing the fact that Ethan is 23 months and very quickly will be turning two!!  Man that went fast!  I've been very careful to try and enjoy all of the moments big and small, but geez, if things could just slow down a little bit, I wouldn't mind at all!

No better snack to keep you cool!  Ethan loves his ice pop!

Ethan and Auntie playing at the book store

playing with big cousin Marshall

Littleton, NH- Polly's Pancakes

vacation with Grandma and Papa

We couldn't resist stopping at a candy store with the longest candy counter in the world- 112 feet!  Notice that Ethan is clearly chomping away!

Ethan plays a little tune at the piano on the sidewalk

We put our feet in the cold water at The Basin in the White Mountains

Ethan's favorite activity was putting leaves in the water and watching the current take them down the rocks

"I swim" as Ethan would say!

Hanging at the pool with Grandma!

Ethan did a great job swimming on his own at the pool!

We are loving every minute of summer!  We spent the weekend on Lake Winnepasaki with my parents and their good friends.  We had a really great time.  The weather was perfect, the company was fantastic, and Ethan loved every adventure that we went on!  I posted pictures of a few of the highlights from the trip.  I'm so happy to report that Ethan is a water baby!  At the start of summer he was apprehensive to get into my parents pool, but ever since we got him this life jacket called, The Puddle Jumper, he is eager to get into the water and can swim pretty independently.  He had a great time swimming around, playing motor boat, kicking a ball, and "jumping" in the pool (he'd sit on the edge, count to three with us and then we pull him in).  We had a really nice "mini vacation" complete with good food, and a trip to the mountains.  Ethan pointed out each and every mountain that he saw as we drove! We're thinking about going back in the fall to actually hike one of those mountains!

Last week my sister Sarah and I took Ethan to the book store.  We didn't realize how close we were to closing time so we only had a few minutes to look around before we had to leave.  I told Ethan that we would visit another time.  Sarah slept over and the next morning we were talking about what we were going to do for the day.  I asked Ethan if he wanted to go the the beach.  He looked right at me and said, "No!  Book Story!" He was insistent that he wanted to go back to the book store.  So that's what we did.  When we arrived, he ran right to the back of the store where the childrens' books are kept, and played and played with his Auntie. We found another cute little book store when we were in Meredith, NH this weekend.  I think Ethan loved everything we did, but I'm pretty sure the book store was at the top of his list!

Ethan's vocabulary continues to blow us away.  He is easily putting two words together and sometimes even three word sentences.  This morning he asked for, "apple juice."  I asked him to choose the cup that he wanted and he pointed at one and said, "Blue dino" and as I was filling the cup he said, "I gonna drink."  I love hearing him talk!  It's fun to listen to him testing out word combinations.  He'll put two words together slowly and then wait for me to repeat them back, almost to confirm that he is correct.  Then he'll repeat the words over and over, each time letting them flow more easily.  Some recent ones are "apple juice", "ice pop", "book store", "I swim", "I jump", "I go car."  By summer's end, I won't be surprised if he's talking in full sentences!  I can't wait to hear what he has to share!

Happy Fourth!

Ethan and Dada get out their drills to hang a picture

Ethan is taking notes on how his big cousins play on the rocks

Snack break

Helping set up our tent

Ethan's favorite beach activity

I'm not sure who was having more fun playing in the sand!

Taking a walk around our campsite- Ethan collected rocks and put them in his "pocky"

Taking in the views

"Are we really going to sleep out here?"

Mama and Ethan

This is one of my favorite shots

No camping trip would be complete without a Tonka flashlight!

Waking up in our tent

Breakfast

Back home, Ethan gets to work shucking corn

We had a wonderful holiday weekend.  My cousin Missy and her boyfriend Chris visited from New York and we had a party on Sunday with all of my siblings and my cousin who lives up this way. Monday we all headed to Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth to cookout.  It seems that, slowly but surely, we have more and more family living in the area which makes getting together so much fun.  Ethan got to spend time with his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and my cousins.  He had a blast!

We took Ethan to see the fireworks on the fourth.  We weren't sure how he would react to the loud booming.  I held him tightly in my arms when the first fireworks went off.  He looked up and sort of smiled for a few minutes and then said, "home."  All of the activity from the weekend was too much and the poor kid just wanted to go home and go to sleep!  We watched the fireworks as we walked back to the car- maybe next year he'll be more impressed!

On Tuesday Pete, Ethan, and I camped at a local park.  We weren't sure how Ethan would do with sleeping in the tent, so being close to home provided a little safety net just in case our evening didn't go as planned!  But, Ethan was a rock star!  He was so excited about everything.  He "helped" set up the tent, he loved running all around the campsite, and was a master collector of kindling and rocks when we went for walks.  He loved crawling around in the tent and snuggling amongst all of the blankets and pillows.  He was really great about staying clear of the campfire.  He would look at it from a distance and tell us that it was "hot", then proceed to blow on it to help cool it off! 

After all of the excitement and activity of camping, Ethan slept better than ever.  I'm not sure I've ever heard him snore so loudly!    When we woke up the next morning Ethan just kept looking around saying, "tent" and "camping." We are so happy to report that we have a little camper and we will be spending plenty of nights in our tent this summer!