Ethan's first Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, we definitely did!  Of course we missed being home, but it was fun to have a low key day where we could just eat, watch the Packers, and play with all of Ethan's new toys!  He certainly is a spoiled baby boy :)  We were very happy, because Zach ended up getting Christmas eve off and only had to go into work for three hours in the afternoon on Christmas day.  We also got to skype with a bunch of our family.....makes me so excited for our trip home! Here are some pictures from Ethan's first Christmas, and I should have some videos up a bit later in the week!

Getting ready for Christmas

We've been very busy lately with all sorts of Christmas-y activites, so I haven't posted much, but hopefully things should pick up after the holidays.  I've done two cookie exchanges already and still have one left, and we're hosting an ugly Christmas sweater party at our house tonight.  I can barely wait until Christmas to give Ethan his presents!  Every single present under our tree so far is for him!  We hope you have a great weekend and I'll post more soon!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elX8Vz3zusE&feature=youtu.be

Better late than never.....

It has been brought to my attention that I am a bit tardy in posting the pictures I promise, so here they are!  We had a great weekend with Dani and we are so happy she came to visit!  And, for those of you that have not heard the good news, Ethan and I will be home for TWO WEEKS in January, so you should come see us! Yay!

Dani visits and Ethan tries lemons

We are very excited to have Dani visiting this weekend!  Today we were out to lunch and we let Ethan try a lemon.  At first we thought he liked it, but eventually got a real taste of it and had a typical baby reaction! We took lots of cute pictures and will post some more after Dani leaves on monday!

Getting ready for Christmas

We spent the weekend putting out Christmas decorations and decorating our tree.  Turns out we bought a super big tree.  It's awesome.  However, as you can see from the pictures, there are no decorations at the very top, since we can't reach it!  No one in our neighborhood owns a ladder!  We'll figure something out eventually though!  I also am putting up some pictures of Ethan from his bath this morning--for some reason he particularly enjoyed it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!!  We hope you all had a wonderful day, and we miss being home with everyone!  Zach cooked a fantastic turkey and we had a nice meal here, just the three (well, four with Newton) of us.  We pureed a little turkey for Ethan....turns out he hated it!  Have a great weekend--I'm looking forward to putting up Christmas decorations!

Determined to Crawl

Here's a video of Ethan trying to crawl.  Won't be long now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWx-PU75bw0

A whole half of a year old

Happy half birthday Ethan!  Today Ethan celebrated his half birthday by getting his shots.  He is doing well so far, but it will probably be in the middle of the night when he wakes up with a fever.  He was such a good boy, that the nurse gave him a sticker :)

Six Month Check-Up

Today Ethan went to the doctor for his 6 month check-up.  He is a very healthy little boy!  He is now 26.3 inches long (although I am going to measure him myself, because I think the untrained enlisted kid who measured him did it incorrectly) and is up to 16.1 pounds.  What a chunker!  I really like his new pediatrician.  I have heard some horror stories from other moms around here, so I'm glad he got one of the good ones!  He has to go back tomorrow for his shots, since apparently they cannot get them until they are exactly 6 months (or older).  Good work to whoever scheduled our appointment.  Hope you are all enjoying the snow/slush you are getting.  It's 75 and sunny here (I know, I'm so mean!)  To make up for it, I leave you with two videos of a very happy baby boy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PFDjXWtHwU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmOxAwMWSks

Yes, we are still alive....

So it turns out that I am much busier than I thought I would be now that Zach has started school.  It's been a bit of an adjustment for us all, but we're hanging in there.  Next week should be better as he will start getting reduced hours.  The worst part is that Zach gets home after Ethan has gone to bed, so he really only sees him for maybe a half hour in the mornings.  We've been hanging out with Tanner and Patti a lot.  Ethan can definitely sit very well on his own now, but occasionally still tips over :)  He is still trying his very best to crawl.  He can actually get up on all fours for a little bit now, but doesn't quite go anywhere yet.  So far he has liked all of the foods we've fed him, except for today.  He hates green beans!  Here are lots of pictures to make up for my lazy blogging!

Happy Halloween!

Last night we had a Halloween party at our house.  A few of our friends came over and we all dressed up.  Ethan dressed up as a monkey, Tanner was a bear, and another couple we know has an 11 month old son who also dressed up as a bear.  Zach was a toy soldier and I was a witch.  As I was getting dressed, the zipper on my dress completely broke, so I ended up having to wear a sweater, since the back of my dress was completely open!  Oh well....at least it was only $6 at Goodwill.  What's everyone else dressing up as???

Pumpkins

Today we went and bought some pumpkins.  We were going to go to the pumpkin patch, but our neighbors told us it wasn't worth the money.  Even still, the pumpkins here are very expensive.  I miss getting free ones from my grandparents! :)