Finally...the swing set is DONE!!!!

Okay, there are more pictures here than anyone probably cares to see, but too bad! Consider it a photo documentary of our 12-hour labor of love for Ethan (and Cade and Keira). That's right - 12 hours! Here we go...


"Alright Ethan, enjoy your new swing set!!!"

Sunday afternoon - the plan was to put a clear protective coat on top of all the wood. Then we opened the box and sorted all the pieces and said "YEAH, RIGHT!!!!" We threw that idea out the window and just started to put it together while Ethan napped.

The Grubbs came over to "help" us:

Keira was very helpful - she handed me all the screws as I needed them:

And that's about all we got done before Ethan woke up. We bought a little time by letting him have his milk and snack outside while we did a little more work. Thank goodness for beautiful weather!

Ethan enjoyed playing with what we did get done:

And even helped Daddy with some very important stuff. (I LOVE these pictures - you can't beat pictures of a boy and his dad)

So that was it for Sunday. Our plan was to finish it on Wednesday, since Lonnie had the day off (and the rest of the week!) Our plan did NOT include it being so stinkin' cold! We were keeping Keira for the day, so we huddled by Mr. Heater as we got started. (Ethan went to daycare for the morning so we could work.)

Getting a little loopy...

I went and got Ethan from daycare before his afternoon nap. He got to see the progress and play for a few minutes before the kiddos went down for a nap.

"Looks good, Dad!"

Okay, skip to the good part - IT'S DONE!!!! Excuse Keira's crazy hair - she had just woken up and we were trying to squeeze in a little playtime before we needed to go in and feed Ethan his milk. (And it was cold again!)

Excuse the mess, too. It may be done, but we didn't have time to clean everything up.

I think we'll enjoy many picnic lunches outside this summer!

Swing Set Teaser

I hadn't really planned on putting up any swing set pictures until we had it all done, but I just couldn't wait! We got about half of it put together on Sunday afternoon, mostly while Ethan napped. The rest will get done tomorrow, provided the weather cooperates! Can't wait to share all the pictures with you - they're cute!

A Whole Lot of Miscellaneous

Conked out after a beautiful afternoon walk:


Reading time with Mommy:

Bath time ~ he was full of smiles and giggles!!!

Wrestle mania with the Grubblets:

More play time outside:

13 months and The Wheels on the Bus

I've been a slacker on Ethan's monthly updates. I don't even think I did one last month. Oops! So here's a rundown on Ethan's 13th month:

• I would officially say that he is WALKING! Altough he's been taking steps for a month and a half now, he wouldn't normally choose to do it. Now, it's finally his main mode of transportation. The only problem is that he still can't get to a standing position on his own. He has to pull up on something and then let go. So if he falls when he's walking, he has to crawl to get to where he can pull up on something, then he takes off again. It's actually kind of funny, but he needs to learn to stand up on his own!!!
• His eating habits are improving - still not great, but improving. You never know what kind of meal we'll have; some meals he eats fine, other meals it's torture! On Sunday he screamed bloody murder when I tried to feed him oatmeal and strawberries for breakfast, but then sucked on lemons nonstop at lunch at Texas Land and Cattle!
• He's now saying bye-bye! He loves to wave goodbye and say "bye bye!" Now in his vocabulary are: Mommy, Daddy, ball, uh-oh, bye-bye
• He's signing more words: all gone, more, bath, eat, milk, we're working on please and thank you - they're a bit more abstract!
• He loves to "give five"
• We're completely paci-free. We gave it up at naptimes at least a month ago, but still let him use it at bedtime. We actually gave that up a month ago too, but that only lasted 2 nights - he ended up getting sick and we felt bad so we gave it back to him.
• Ethan's adjusted extremely well to whole milk. We switched him the weekend of his birthday and never looked back! We still warmed it up for him, though, so we finally gave that up last weekend.
• He has been so silly and fun the past week or two, since he's been feeling better. Love it!
• He has started patting me on my back, just like I do to him. He snuggles up on my shoulder and pats me with both hands. It is just tooooooo precious!
• He's an outdoorsman - loves to play outside! Our new swingset should be delivered tomorrow, so we can't wait to put it together and play outside!!!!
• He still only has TWO TEETH!!!! Is something wrong with my child????

Okay, that's enough. I'll probably think of more later and will add on, though.

Oh, and by the way, my boy's a genius! Ethan and I love singing The Wheels on the Bus together. We have a book of it, so we read it too. He's learned to do the actions with me. He won't do all of them all the time, but he'll usually do 3 or 4 of the verses. What completely amazes me is that all I have to do is turn the page, and he recognizes from the picture what the action is supposed to be. Sometimes I won't even have started singing and he is already doing the actions. How smart is he????

I think Ethan's finally starting to feel better - he was SOOOO fun this afternoon! He was rolling around on the floor, giggling, playing with his toys and just laughing!

I love that laugh!!!

Lovin' on Daddy!

Sunday pictures

It's been awhile since we had a picture taken of all three of us, so here we are! It's after church, so we had already lost the socks and shoes, rolled up the sleeves, and were ready for a nap!!! But hey, it works!
I can't get over how grown up Ethan looks! His hair is getting so long and boy-like (not babyish anymore)!

Random picture, but funny! We had let some friends borrow Ethan's old bouncy seat, and they brought it to church to return it to us. Ethan saw it and I think he felt like he was reunited with an old friend! He loved watching the lights and hearing the music again. He laid in it WAY longer than I thought he would have! Look at how long he is!

*Oh, and we're still soliciting any and all advice on dealing with the picky eater stage. Dinner is pretty much torture these days, so HELP!