Go, Hogs, Go!

Yesterday was the first Razorback football game of the season - yea! Lonnie's had season tickets for 10 years now, and I've been joining the fun for the last 4 years. Even though I'm not exactly a sports enthusiast, I LOVE going to the games. We have a good group of friends that we go with, and the atmosphere is so exciting - the band, the cheerleaders (yes I watch them), the cheering crowds, the ice-cold fizzy Cokes, oh yeah, and the football. Of course, this year was a little different having a child in the mix. Since he's obviously too young to enjoy the action, he'll be having some quality time with various family members for the five home games. This time around Rachel got to keep him (I make it sound like it's such an honor - ha!). Since we wouldn't be getting in til quite late, she offered to keep him overnight, which we couldn't turn down! Sounds like they had a lot of fun - see her blog to read about it and see some cute pictures. And of course, he slept ALL NIGHT for her. Figures, huh?

Here we are, one happy Razorback family.

The time has come...

Even though Ethan is only 6 months old, MY BABY NEEDS A HAIRCUT. There, I said it. I told myself I would NOT cut his hair, but I have let one person's recent comment affect my decision. Last Sunday, after I had made a comment about his crazy mohawk, someone told me she thought I had cut his hair to make it look like a mohawk. Meaning, she actually thought I had taken a pair of clippers and cut the side and back so my sweet, innocent, pure little baby boy would have a mohawk. RIGHT! Combine that with Lonnie's constant comments about how long Ethan's hair is (notice I did not say nagging), and how I brush Ethan's hair out of his face about 100 times a day, and I decided that it was time.

So, Crystal is coming over on Wednesday with her magical scissors and she's going to make my baby look more handsome than ever! These pictures are for her so she can get an idea in her head of what she's dealing with, but everyone else can enjoy them too. They're not very good pictures, but you get the idea.




Very blurry, but you can see the hair hanging over his ears!

Good luck, Crystal!

Sick Boy

So...Ethan survived his first fever. We got a call from daycare yesterday around 2pm saying he had a fever of 102 degrees (yikes!). Lonnie and I had already decided that if Ethan ever got sick, that he'd be the one to go pick him up since 1) they don't have to call a sub for him and 2) I need to save up sick days so we can have Baby #2 some day. So Lonnie took off to get him, but since it was so close to the end of the day, and it was his first fever, and the fact that I had the carseat, I decided to leave early from work and go get him (luckily a friend could cover the last 15 minutes in my class).
Ethan's cheeks were really red and he felt really warm, but he really wasn't very fussy. I think he has a high tolerance for pain. Once we got some Tylenol in him, he cooled off and felt better (see pictures below - same night). Ethan isn't allowed back to daycare for 24 hours, so Lonnie had to take today off of work. He was already scheduled to take Friday off, too, for our daycare's annual in-service day. So Ethan and Lonnie get a 5-day weekend! I'm not at all jealous. (ha!) Don't worry, Lonnie brought his work laptop home, so he has plenty of work to do.
Ethan's been pretty good today. He's felt warm at times, but Tylenol has been helping.




Ethan is always so interested in what's going on OUTSIDE the tub. We've learned to be a little neater, since the clutter we normally leave on the kitchen counter is a lot of FUN to Ethan.
And in case you're wondering about Ethan's sleep...
Monday night - slept all night
Tuesday night - woke up once (but stayed up for an hour)
Wednesday night - woke up twice, about 20 minutes each

So, that's a big improvement! We were a little less strict about our no picking him up rule with him being sick, and he's still done well. We're headed in the right direction!

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ethan slept all night last night!!!!!! This has not happened in over two months! It's quite ironic that it happened last night...

Lonnie and I have been completely exhausted lately. We decided last night that we HAVE to do something about Ethan waking up several times during the night. We knew we were enabling him by picking him up and rocking him in the middle of the night, but he sometimes wouldn't fall back asleep without us doing it. So Lonnie and I laid out a plan last night for some tough love. We decided that we would not go in his room unless he's cried for at least 15 minutes. Then we would NOT pick him up - pacifier only. If he didn't go back to sleep, let him cry for another 15 minutes, then try the pacifier again. So we went to bed early and geared up for a long night of crying. Lonnie fed him his bottle at 8:45 then laid him down. He slept for about 2 minutes, then woke up crying. I let him cry for 15 minutes, went in and put his pacifier in. Big mistake!!! He was so mad that I did not pick him up and started screaming. He cried for about 10 minutes, then fell asleep. It's now 6am, and I still haven't heard a peep from him. I went in to check on him earlier this morning and he had rolled over and was sleeping on his belly, so I don't know if that made a difference to him. (sidenote: is it okay for him to sleep on his belly now?) Also, he actually slept at daycare yesterday - he took a 3 hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, which is almost unheard of (he only slept for one hour all day on Friday!).
Sooooo... I don't know what all contributed to him actually sleep all night, but I'm hoping it happens again tonight! (greedy, I know)

And oh yeah... I realized I forgot to post his official 6 month stats from the doc:
Weight: 18 lbs, 14 oz. (not 20!)
Height: 27 1/4 inches (I choose not to believe this - he was 27 inches two months ago - I'll stick with my measurement of 28 1/4)

Eating Veggies!

Sorry for the long time with no post. School started this week and I have been EXHAUSTED! The first week of school is always exhausting, but add to that waking up several times during the night to pacify a baby, and you feel like a walking zombie. I told Lonnie that for Christmas I want a sleeping pill (wrapped up with a pretty bow on top) and 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. But school has gone well. I think it's going to be a really good year.



Ethan got his first experience of eating real baby food on Tuesday. We started with carrots, and he really liked them! We did that for three days, and then started green beans last night. Although he ate them, I could tell he didn't care for them like he did the carrots. He kept sticking his tongue out, making it almost impossible to get the spoon in. Next up on Monday, squash! Yum, yum!
I have a funny video of Ethan eating carrots that I'll try to post later tonight. Right now the laundry is calling me.

New Big Boy Jammies

Saw these jammies and HAD to buy them - TOO cute!
He looks like a big boy!

Happy Half-Birthday, Ethan!!!!

Holy cow...I almost can't believe what I'm writing. There's no way my baby has been here for half a year!!! What a blessing he has been in our lives. He becomes more and more fun every day.

Here are Ethan's unofficial stats: (we'll get the official doctor-version on Monday)
weight: 19.8 pounds (hey, that's not twenty!)
height: 28 1/4 inches

What Ethan's been up to this month:

• SITTING UP!!!! YEA, ETHAN!!!
• EATING CEREAL!!!! Ethan has really started to enjoy his rice cereal. He wasn't crazy about it for a long time, but would usually eat it as long as I sang to him. Now he'll eat most of it without me having to entertain him.
• He just started making his first consonant sound yesterday - he says "bu, bu"
• Smiling a lot! Any look from Mommy or Daddy can usually get a good-size grin
• He went through a 2-week spurt where he didn't really care to eat, but we're back on track now
• He eats 8 ounces at 7:00, 11:30, 4:00, and 9:30ish (before we go to bed), and also eats rice cereal at 6pm.
• Bedtime routine: 6:15 - cereal, 6:30 - bath, 7:00 - bed (sometimes earlier if he didn't get good naps at daycare)
• Going to daycare - harder on Mom than on Ethan! He doesn't always get good naps, but he's doing better
• No teeth, but still drooling and gnawing like crazy!
• SLEEPING! Okay, still not through the night, but he's doing better! Lately we've only been getting up 1-3 times each night. Yea for sleep!!!!
• SCREAMING! Most of the time it's just for fun - he screams at the top of his lungs, just because he can. It's hard to tell sometimes if he's having fun or if he's upset.

Guess that's about it.

Here's my baby on Day One:

Three Months:
Six Months: (excuse the PJ's - now that he's so wiggly, I've learned to do this right before bedtime so he's almost conked out)

Happy 6 months, Ethan!!!!

Link to Professional Pictures

You can see our professional pictures we just had taken at this website:

http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/my/images?cg=207294587117946565

If you need the password, it's ethanlamp.

A Weird Tradition

After Lonnie and I got married, we started a slightly odd tradition. We like to go to restaurants on their opening day. I don't really remember why we started doing it, but it's a lot of fun. We usually get pretty good service, because they have TONS of people on staff for their Grand Opening, and they sometimes give out free stuff.

And now we get to share our odd tradition with Ethan.

Here's our list to date (as best as we can remember):
McDonald's x 2
Chic-Fil-A
Carraba's
Flying Burrito (Ethan's first Grand Opening!)
Olive Garden
Domino's
And our newest one (today!)... Steak 'n Shake!!! This was Ethan's second Grand Opening.



Upcoming Grand Openings (let us know if you live around here and hear of the exact date they're opening!):
Beef O'Brady's
Red Lobster
Einstein Bros. Bagels



And a random picture for you...

Six Month Portraits

We went to The Picture People this afternoon to get Ethan's six month pictures taken, and to get our first ever family portrait done. Lonnie and I haven't had a professional picture taken since our wedding, so it was definitely time! Unfortunately, the only way I can share them for now is to take a picture of the picture, which doesn't exactly come out very clear, but you get the general idea...
(in case you're wondering, I hung them on the fridge to take the pictures, so the black spots are magnets)

This one's really blurry, but too cute not to share...

Ethan goes for his six-month check-up on the 18th, so I'll post his stats then. Can't wait to see how big he is!

What's missing?

Look at this picture and see if you can tell what's missing. (If you know my baby very well at all, this is easy!!!!)


That's right! Ethan is NOT swaddled!!!! We (and by we I mean Lonnie) decided about two minutes before bedtime last night that it was time to give up the swaddling (well, WAY past time). We tried giving up cold turkey a couple of months ago and that was a horrible scream-fest, and we haven't tried since then. He just wouldn't sleep longer than 20 minutes in his crib without being swaddled, and I didn't want to be up every 20 minutes at night. Anyway, we decided to try it and he actually did quite well. We got up a few more times than usual, but it was not nearly as bad as I imagined.
And since we're on the subject, his nighttime sleeping has improved - we decided to feed him cereal around 6:15, then bath, and bed at 7pm. We wake him up before we go to bed to feed him his last bottle. He sleeps pretty soundly until around 3am. For some reason, he's up a lot between 3-5am, then he's sound asleep again until 6:30-7ish. Weird, huh? So aside from the two hour stretch, it's a big improvement!

Here's the happy boy when he woke up this morning, so proud of himself for sleeping without being swaddled!!!

Sitting Up!!!!

That's right! Our little man can sit up! He still topples over a lot, but he can sit up for awhile on his own. It's amazing how fast he learned. We've been working on it a lot the last 2 weeks, but in the last two days he's really started to figure it out. He does especially well when he has a toy in his lap. In this video he has a farm toy in his lap, which is his absolute favorite. He slaps away at it and has a good 'ol time!

Enjoy!

The Answer....

You betcha!!!

To be honest, though, I was 100% sure that I would NOT cry. I knew the day was coming and I was perfectly okay with it. I've dropped Ethan off with several people (all family and friends, of course), and I am very confident and comfortable with the daycare we chose, so I didn't think it'd be a problem. But due to a couple of miscommunications (long story that I won't get into) when I dropped him off, I left feeling a little unsettled. I did manage to hold it together until I got to the car, but then the tears came!

Long story short, everything's fine now. He hasn't been napping great at daycare, but I think that will come once he gets used to sleeping with the noise. It actually worked out well for us because he was so tired last night that he slept ALL night long, aside from waking up once at 5am.

In other news.... (again)
Ethan's learning to sit up! I'm working on downloading a video, but Blogger's being weird right now. Stay tuned...

Ethan's First Vacation

We left on Wednesday night to drive to Indiana to see my cousin get married, and for my grandparents (and lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins) to meet Ethan for the first time. It was a long 9-hour drive, but we purposely left at bedtime so the kids (oh yeah, did I mention that we took Cade and Keira, too?) could sleep the whole way, which they did with the exception of a two-hour fussy stretch for Ethan at 1am. My parents did great helping out once we got there so Lonnie and I could go take a much needed nap.

I'll admit, I didn't do very good at taking pictures. After downloading the pictures, I realized I didn't even get a picture of my mom (sorry Mom!). I didn't get a single picture from the wedding because I forgot to put the battery back in after I charged it. I was SOOO mad at myself.

So, here are the moments I did capture:

Here we are, ready for a nine hour drive! Do you think we looked this happy after the long drive?

Unless you're in the Willis family, you can't truly appreciate this picture. Everyone who's anyone has sat in this high chair. We have pictures of Trevis, Rachel and I in it when we were little, along with all of my cousins. The "next" generation has all sat in it - Cade, Keira, Parker, Lillie, and now Ethan!!! He really liked the fact that he could see himself in the tray.



Cade and Keira being silly...

We went to the Louisville Zoo on Friday afternoon. It was SOOOOO hot! I was too hot and sweaty to care about taking pictures, so I only got these two:
The gorillas put on quite a show for us - they were playing around and splashing in the water. One gorilla thought we needed a close-up of his rear-end, which Ethan thought was funny.
When you're the son or nephew of a teacher, you learn that vacation or not, we always find time to read!

Ethan loved hanging out with his Grandpa! Every time Dad looked at him, he got a HUGE smile on his face.

Grandma finally got to meet her newest grandson! Ethan loved snuggling with his GreatMa.

Grandma and Grandpa with their five great-grandchildren! WOW!
Caden got some quality time with Aunt Debbie - reading, of course!
We had a great trip! We did learn that having three children is WAY HARD!!! Traveling at night time is definitely the way to go. We got in at 4:15 this morning, which kind of made for a hard day, but we were able to send Ethan to Dustin and Joanna's for a little bit so we could catch some zzzzz's.

In other news...

Ethan starts daycare tomorrow! I'm sure I'll have to post something about that tomorrow.