Christmas

Hope you all had a wonderful time with family. We really enjoyed Ethan's first Christmas! (there are a couple of mistakes in the captions, but I'm too lazy to fix them)

Merry Christmas!

Make a Smilebox greeting

A Paci-free Ethan

We've decided the time has come. I didn't really want him to use a pacifier past a year, which, holy cow, is only a month and a half away!!!!! I figured since I'm home the next two weeks, now is the perfect time, rather than waiting til February and making his daycare ladies do it.
It's being going quite well! We still let him use it when he sleeps, so I know we haven't truly conquered the paci, but we've won half the battle! I don't really think he's even noticed it's gone. I've missed the paci on a few loud car rides, I'll have to admit, though. But I didn't give in! We've been paci-free for 4 days now!


What a sweet face!

Grandpa

Okay, instead of just copying Rachel, you need to see her latest post. It's about our Grandpa - he's too funny! (and apparently famous now - I saw this story on NATIONAL news this morning and immediately knew they were referring to my Grandpa!)

Double Digits

A few days late, but our boy is 10 months old!

I think I'm going to have to give up on his monthly picture. Now that he's mobile, it is next to impossible to get him to lay down long enough to take a picture. But the pictures I got crack me up! It shows exactly how this photo shoot went:

Things I want to remember about my sweet ten-month old

• he's started eating table food (we were reluctant on that!)
  
• he currently prefers to feed himself table food than to be fed baby food on a spoon


• likes to push things around on the ground, especially books
  
• likes to dance to music


• uses the sign for 'more' when prompted


• he's back to spitting while eating (I'm guessing because he doesn't seem to want baby food anymore)


• likes to walk with his push toy


• crawling everywhere


• playing with doorstops


• opening drawers and cabinets


• sleeping all night


• will walk while holding onto our hands


• still loves his exersaucer - bounces like crazy!


• likes to pull down all his books (he looks like he's in a library selecting books)


• drinks juice from sippy cup


• he's so snuggly!

It's been a great ten months! I can NOT believe he will be a year old soon!!!!

A Santa Kind of Day

I've been excitedly waiting for Saturday morning to come - Santa Cow was going to be at Chick-fil-A! I know that's completely dorky, but I thought it'd be funny to have Ethan's picture taken with him. He did surprisingly well!

I know this picture is all blurry, but I thought it was cute how Ethan was looking up at the cow:
The good one:

Before we headed home we decided to run by the Associate Store and were surprised to the see the REAL Santa! This one didn't go as well:

Yep, I have one of those kids that screams in Santa's lap. Awesome.

Maybe we'll stick with Santa Cow in the future.

Giggly Boy

I LOVE THESE BOYS!

Haircut Number 2!!!

We got all fancy and actually visited Crystal at her salon today. Ethan did SOOOOO well! He sat so quietly and patiently as Crystal cut away. WAY better than I had expected. He was super tired, so maybe that helped.

So handsome!!! Thanks Crystal! You are very talented and patient!

Ethan These Days

Blogger is being weird and won't let me post all these videos together, so I have to do them all separately.

Ethan is doing so many fun things these days. Thought I'd share a few videos to show what he's been up to. (I have another one I'll put up later - it won't work right now)

Clapping:

Although Ethan's been clapping for awhile now, he's finally learned how to actually make a sound with his hands, which he thinks is pretty cool. He claps A LOT these days.

Learning to Walk

It's not perfect, but WOW, he's getting strong!

Crawling

I usually pick up Ethan from daycare, unless I have a late meeting. So this is what Lonnie gets to see when he gets home:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that fast little crawl!!!

Ethan's First Booboo

We somehow made it almost ten whole months without losing a drop of blood. But we knew that would come to an end - he is a Lamp, afterall. (ha!)

While Lonnie and I were out on a date Friday night, Ethan decided to have his first accident. Dustin, Joanna, and Lexi were watching him. He was standing at his little activity table and somehow fell onto it, cutting open his chin. But I think he was a trooper! Joanna said he only cried for a few seconds. But it sure did look pretty yucky when we got him up this morning...

So, this is the beginning. I'm sure we will have plenty of broken bones, scrapes, and bloody noses, knees, elbows, etc. in our future!

Thanks to Aunt Jo, Uncle Dustin, and cousin Lexi for playing with Ethan so we could enjoy some time away!

My Handsome Boy

I couldn't help snapping a few pictures of Ethan after church today. He looked so handsome in his new sweater!

Ethan has done surprisingly well with the Christmas tree. It took him at least a full 24 hours to get anywhere near it - he just looked at it from afar. Now he's getting a bit more curious (and daring) and wants to explore with his hands, rather than just his eyes. But when he starts reaching for it, usually a simple 'no-no, Ethan," works. He's learning those words quite well these days! We really want Ethan to learn self-control, right from wrong, all those good things. So instead of just removing all the temptations around the house (like a pretty Christmas tree!), we want him to learn that some things are not for touching. We'll see how that goes!

And some extra Saturday fun - who know laundry baskets were so entertaining???

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving with Lonnie's family. I know this is WAY too many pictures, but they're just too cute!


Hmmm...Thanksgiving in Michigan/Indiana never looks like this:

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Entertainment

In our hunt for things to entertain Ethan today, we found an unopened toy from one of our baby showers. Our lucky day! It served for good entertainment for Ethan, and possibly even more for us! We loved watching him chase that tractor around. Even more entertaining is watching him get distracted by the doorstop, which is apparently more exciting than any toy. Enjoy! :)

House Arrest

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! We're going stir crazy around here!!! You can only play with the same toys over and over again for so long. So we've had to come up with new ways to entertain our sick, fussy boy.

The next best thing to playing outside:

(oh, and in case you were wondering, sick boy=Mommy doesn't have to take a shower or put on real clothes all day)

Next best thing to taking a walk outside:

Ethan's fever has been better today - we've only done Tylenol a couple of times. He's just super cranky - you can tell he just does NOT feel well. He's not eating well or napping well, either. But I think the end may be near. He definitely slept better last night. Hopefully he'll be back to his normal self soon so he can enjoy his first Thanksgiving!

Any ideas on how to keep us from going stir crazy until then?

Poor Baby!

We ended up taking Ethan to the walk-in clinic this afternoon. The Tylenol/Ibuprofin combo wasn't working anymore to take his fever down. Turns out he has an ear infection. The doctor was also concerned about Ethan's wheezing and did an X-ray to be sure he didn't have pneumonia (which he didn't). After 2 1/2 hours, we left with an antiobiotic for the ear infection, and a steriod and inhaler for the wheezing. Let me tell you, trying to give an inhaler to a 9 month old is quite an experience.
We are praying for a VERY quick recovery. The last 24 hours have been very trying, to say the least. We are completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally. It's so hard seeing him so miserable. He's been a diffferent child the last two days. We're hoping for our sweet, loving, smiley baby boy back soon!
(Thanks Jenny and Rachel for all your advice)

Sick Boy

We got a call from daycare around 4:25 yesterday afternoon saying Ethan had a temperature of 102 degrees. Ironic, since I was at home sick, too (puking, not a fever). Luckily, Lonnie was only about 5 minutes away from picking him up anyways. After getting some Tylenol in him, he did okay most of the evening (paranoid me though, of course had to have Rachel come over and check him out). We've had to keep Tylenol in him all day today, too. His fever keeps creeping back. On top of his fever, he has a HORRIBLE cough and drippy nose. Poor baby.

It's been a long day! Lonnie had to work, so luckily I was feeling better and could take care of Ethan (but that didn't keep me from calling Lonnie about 20 times asking when he was coming home!). He's been really cranky this evening, and we actually just put him down at 6:00.

Lonnie enjoyed some extra cuddly time with his little man yesterday after picking him up.

We're hoping for a good night's sleep for Ethan (and us!) and that he'll feel better soon! We can't stand seeing him feel so crummy.