Pictures from Easter weekend

Ethan's easter basket...it was cute with lots of plastic sports things (hocky sticks, golf set, baseball set). Let me explain the plunger in the picture lol. Ethan adores playing with plungers...not sure why. So, I bought him his own to carry around. Hence the plunger in the living room.

Climbing the car at the play area at the mall.

Happy Easter

We had a wonderful long Easter weekend as a family. Steven and I had Good Friday off of work, so we took Ethan to the soft play area at the mall. He had a great time playing with the other kids there, and I got some shopping done too :-). We skipped the Easter Bunny pictures since there was quite a line. On Sunday, we went to church. Ethan was all dressed up in his new easter outfit and looked absolutely adorable. My friend Beth snapped this picture of us together after church.

My little helper

Ethan is getting to be such a big boy and LOVES to help me around the house. I've put a couple of clips here of him cleaning with Grandma today. He gets so excited to dust and clean windows...let's hope he keeps that up.
Ethan also jabbers constantly. He jabbers and then laughs like he said something funny. It cracks me up. He still only says about 10 "real" words, but he understands and obeys (most of the time) some simple commands. I can't believe how quickly he is growing up.

Ethan telling a joke

Ethan dusting with Grandma

Ethan cleaning Grandma's mirror

Bedtime Prayers

Every night as part of our bedtime routine with Ethan, we pray (albeit a very very short prayer to accomodate a one-year-old's attention span). We always kneel by the couch as a family, just to get into the habit. We've been doing this for a few months now, and a few weeks ago, Ethan started coming to the couch on his own when we tell him it is time for prayer. On Saturday, we did the routine as usual, except when Ethan went over to the couch, he said, "Jesus." I thought I must have misheard, except my mom and Steve also said they heard him say it. We thought it must have been a fluke, so we went on with his routine, reading a bedtime story. Then, my mom suggested doing prayer again, just to see what Ethan did. Sure enough, he came over to the couch and again said, "Jesus." We got him to repeat it at the end of the prayer as well. It was so sweet to hear his little voice say. I'm so proud this is among his first words!

New Things

Ok, I have no pictures from Christmas to post yet...I'm one of those people that never takes pictures, relying on other family members to take them and then email copies. Instead of pictures I thought I'd write a little about new things Ethan is doing. It seems he is learning something every day. These past few weeks he has:
1. Started to say "see" and "up" (in addition to his vocabulary of "mama" "dada" "uh oh" "hot")
2. Dubbed my mom "nana" (he came up with that himself...we've always referred to her as grandma)
3. Gives kisses on demand (well, that may be going a bit far...he gives kisses on request when he is in the mood)
4. Learned to open the back door, which is a bit scary. I'm starting to make sure the deadbolt is always locked!
5. Started waving bye-bye to anyone that puts on their coat.

He is an amazingly sweet little boy. I'm such a proud mom, if you can't tell :-)

Ethan's 1 Year Pictures

Ethan turned 1 on November 12th. I can't beleive a year has gone by so quickly. His pictures turned out so well!

Thanksgiving

Ethan was fascinated with little Braedon.

Alex and Ethan playing in the dishwasher.

Playing with grandpa.

Testing the baby-proof cabinets

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. The immediate family was there, and Jim & Beth, Aaron, Lark & Braedon joined us as well. It was so nice to spend time with them all...and the food was good too :-).

Alex and Ethan were so cute together. They both R-E-A-L-L-Y enjoyed helping grandma with the dishwasher. Ethan was also quite taken with Braedon.