Catch Up

Where to begin...I'm used to updating every week and I've been so busy that I haven't gotten to it. Not too much new around here really. Dave is still studying for his test (it's actually 4 weeks from yesterday - April 25th), and Ethan and I are excited to get a week or two with him before he starts to study for the next test.

I actually joined the BP Running Team and ran in my first race this weekend (and it was freezing). We have to run 6 official races of any distance from 5K to a marathon. Funny how I love to run, but I've never run in an officially timed race before Saturday and I was surprisingly nervous. Never the less, I surprised myself by averaging 8:30/mi. I got 6th out of 53 women in my age range (20-29) and 125th out of 400 total in the race. I think I'm running in 2 more races before the end of April, so I'll be halfway done. One of my high school girlfriends might have me talked into running the half marathon in Chicago in September - but we'll see...

Ethan is growing up and becoming more vocal every day it seems. I actually put a pair of 18 m pajamas on him the other night and his feet were ready to bust out of them and there's definitely not as much extra material in the length of the material anymore. He seems to be gaining vocabulary words or at least tries to mimic everything we say these days!! I read somewhere online that kids up to 18 months can sometimes only have 5 or so words in their vocabulary and I think he can say at least 50 and know what object/meaning the words have, so he's not just babbling. Lately I think he's sometimes getting frustrated more often because he doesn't know the words to tell us. This weekend he had a few meltdowns and I tried several actions to try to help him to no avail!! Oh well, just a phase I guess.

Here are a few pictures from when we went to Grandpa's house last weekend for breakfast and visiting and also some pictures of him dancing with his stuffed animals and riding his bike around the house.

This is a frustrated face because Mom is no longer pushing him around the house.

Dancing with his Beaver...his most recent favorite stuffed animal (he got from the great grandparents)!

Playing with Grandma Linda's pilates "thingy"...

Success - he was able to stand it up himself!

BIG hugs for Grandpa!

5 GREAT Years!!

Yesterday was Dave and my 5 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe we've already hit this milestone!! We're going out for sushi and a movie tonight and then we got tickets to go see Cirque Dreams at the Aurora theatre in May, which I'm totally excited for!!

St. Patty's Weekend

I have to admit, Ethan and I were very busy this weekend - so busy that I forgot to bring/charge the camera until Sunday when we got a few shots (will post later, didn't have time to download).

Friday I had lunch with Ethan at Lauren's house (I brought Potbelly's for Lauren and I to eat..mmm). It was a fun little treat to have lunch during the week with him. We then headed up to my mom's where we did some summer clothes shopping for Ethan at Kohl's. After our shopping we headed up to my Grandma's and had dinner in Wisconsin for a good 'ol fashioned fish fry with about a dozen of my family members. Ethan was a GREAT little boy considering he only had 2-30 minute naps in our entire 2.5 hour drive up to my Mom's/Grandma's and he stayed awake and cheerful until 8pm for the ride home!!

Saturday we talked Daddy, Lauren and Gianna into coming to the Naperville St. Patty's Day parade. I ALMOST got a picture of Lauren and both kids, until the battery ran out - ugh! Anyway, Ethan caught on to the fact that the items being tossed towards us were candy...he handed me a tootsie roll, but it was way too hard to share with him - so he settled for a mini snickers bar. There were lots of 'doggies' in the parade, which was his favorite part!!

Sunday Ethan and I went and had brunch with some of my old high school girlfriend's at Cracker Barrell where he got rave reviews again for being so well behaved and happy the whole time. He ate half of an enormous blueberry muffin and then played with the straw in my water for the rest of the time. We also got outside to play for a while on Sunday afternoon - gosh I love this weather!! I can't wait to see Ethan running around the neighborhood with all the kids this summer!

That's it, I will post pictures this weekend when we take a few more.

Children's Museum

I took Ethan to the Naperville Children's Museum this weekend and we met a few of my co-workers and their kids. It ended up being a yucky, rainy day, so it was a nice place to get out without being in the elements. We met right when it opened, which was definitely a good idea because about an hour later it was crammed with people! So, we at least got to see a lot of the exhibits without crawling through many other people and their little ones. Ethan wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first, but I just let him walk around and look at his own pace.

We first went to the music room and he was good at pounding on the drum items. After testing out the sounds, he then took on his daddy's engineering skills and testing fitting the rubber mallet into the different holes of the musical instruments.

Next exciting exhibit was the HUGE pinball machine.

On to building with some pvc piping with friend Max (5 weeks younger than Ethan)

Then, the water table...most of the kids wore water-proof smocks, but Ethan was too sophisticated for those. :)

On our way out...

My tidy little boy

Not sure if Ethan is just going through a phase or if he's already got Mommy's crazy 'neat freak' gene. Everything he sees on the floor that is "ockie," (spelling?) he has to pick it up and either hand it to me or go and put it in the garbage himself. All Sasha's little tufts of hair get picked up by hand these days, and he also found some dried up leaves from a plant that fell on the floor and he picked each one up separately and brought them to me. He is, just in general, good at helping to pick things up though, so it's not just the yucky stuff. Even Lauren made a comment when I picked him up on Friday, that he just is sucha helper. I realize that one day he will probably put up quite a fight to help me pick up his toys, but I'll take it now, while I can get the help.

Some cute things he's been saying lately:

*When you put his sunglasses on him, he immediately says "dude" - very cute!

*I let Sasha out this morning and she knows she gets a biscuit afterwards. I made her sit and then I gave her the treat and he immediately said, "good girl", which is usually what I follow up with after she properly sits and gets her treat. This one seriously blew me out of the water when he beat me to the punch! The things that he is attuned to!!

Here's a cute picture of Ethan in his duck towel after a bath:

We also had Uncle Patrick spend the night Friday night after we went to dinner with my side. Ethan kept saying "uncle" around Patrick.

Little bit of dancing before bedtime.