Tree and Lights

This year, I had the honor of hosting my side of the family's Christmas, and in my family we decorate a tree together on Christmas Eve.  We decided we might as well get a smaller tree to hold us over until then, and who doesn't like having two Christmas trees anyway?

Ethan really loved decorating the tree and didn't want to stop ever.  He kept exclaiming, "Isn't it AMAZING, Mommy/Daddy?!?" and, "It's AMAZING!!"  Oh, and the way he says "ornament?"  So cute. We literally had to drag him upstairs for bedtime because he did not want to quit.

Ethan and Daddy decorating the tree (taken with our back-up camera, so excuse the less than stellar quality).

Finished product

Ethan admiring the ornaments.

Me trying to be artistic.

And because we got a small family tree this year and I usually have about 10 or 12 white lights on our tree (yes, I'm a little light crazy), I had plenty of lights left over to do this:

I love lights.

 I absolutely love it and I'm considering leaving them up forever.  Cory has finally gotten on board with my Christmas lights idea and he executed my vision perfectly.  Very Griswold, no?

Christmas Festivities 2011

Things have been mighty busy this month, so I'm using that as the reason the blog has yet again been neglected.  So here's a nice round up of all the things we've been up to this season.

The first Christmas activity we attended was a party with all of Ethan's buddies complete with a secret Santa gift exchange.  Ethan has really started to like interacting with his friends and he enjoyed getting together with everyone, and of course getting his first present of the season.

E and a few of his buddies enjoying brunch at the party

That evening we headed down to the capital for their tree lighting and holiday sing-a-long.  We've never done this before, and while it was no Rockefeller Center, it was okay.  It was pretty uneventful, though.  We heard a few Christmas carols, saw the tree, and then took a stroll down Congress Avenue admiring the lights.

Me and Ethan

Our attempt at a family photo.  Again, nothing like last year.

Daddy and Ethan

Nana and Ethan

Another activity we did this year was a Christmas Cookie exchange.  Well, I did it actually, and it was my first ever.  I'm not really a sweets person, but I knew two guys who would be all over getting six dozen cookies.  Their faces when I came home with my stash was totally worth it, and then they got right to work.

Examining their goodies.

We also had a house guest the week before Christmas, my good friend Kathy, so we had to drag her along to a timeless Austin tradition.  She was sad to find out the Trail of Lights was no more, but we enjoyed a bit of the Zilker Tree.  Ethan LOVED the spinning part.  I'm just glad we decided to eat dinner after visiting the tree, things could have gotten ugly.

The tree.  Gotta have a picture every year I suppose.

Spinning.  Blurry, but I still love it.

Nana bought him a sussie.

So that's a little bit of what we've been up to.  More Christmas posts to come.

A quick catch up... Halloween

Just a quick back track so we can get on to the Christmas fun.

Halloween was lovely.  Ethan has only done trick-or-treating once as a baby Bevo, and it was only to a couple of houses on our street.  This year, we had him all ready for the big night.  I was a little nervous he would be too shy to go up to stranger's houses and ask for candy, but he was a pro.  He even remembered his manners and said thank you and "bye' to everyone.

When he got home, he was all about digging into the candy, and he told us all about how he saw some scary things.  He never really got scared and we explained it was all pretend, but he continued to tell everyone who asked for the next few days that he went "twick or tweet and saw some sca-wee fings."  It was pretty adorable.

Getting ready to go

walking with Nana

He immediately stripped down because he was hot, and then discovered his love for Tootsie Rolls.  And of course, had some of his favorties, M&Ms.

Better late than never, Happy Halloween.

wordless Wednesday

because we haven't had one in awhile:

pumpkin carving

The past couple of years I haven't bothered carving a pumpkin because I figured Ethan was too young to appreciate it.  Plus, let's face it, it's kind of a pain in the rear.  It seems like it's going to be all fun and games until you're about halfway into scooping out the pumpkin innards and you realize it's never going to be completely cleaned out, and you'd rather just start carving already, but then your hand starts cramping and two hours later you're still not done.  Or maybe that's just for the overly anal people like me?

Anyway, on Sunday night Ethan was getting bored and antsy, so I looked up at the clock to discover it was still a couple of hours until bedtime.  Then the pumpkin we had picked up at HEB a week ago caught my eye, and despite all the pains I mentioned in the first paragraph, I decided to give it a go.

I cut out the top of the pumpkin and began to scrape when Cory came in to help us.  He was actually enjoying the scooping out, so I let him at it and Ethan helped too.  This is when I noticed that BOTH of them were super excited about this whole thing, so I had to ask Cory, "When's the last time you carved a pumpkin?"  Silence. 

Yep, it's true, NEITHER of my guys had ever before carved a pumpkin. Cory tried to think long and hard back to his childhood, but he really couldn't remember ever doing it.  Boggles my mind.  He actually said he really didn't even know how carving was done.  So, I let him pick the design and started the carving part, but then I decided since Cory was a rookie and all, maybe he should get in on some of the pain, I mean fun.

The whole experience definitely renewed my love of carving pumpkins.  They were both so excited to do it and to see what it looked like all finished and lit up.  Definitely a winning night.

scooping with Daddy

helping Mommy

the finished product

Pumpkin Patch

(Can it be true?  Am I actually blogging about something that happened less that a week ago?  That has to be the first time that's happened this year).

So yes, the pumpkin patch.  We visited Evergreen Farms in Elgin last year around this time, and we had a pretty good time so we headed back this year with a couple friends.  I thought Ethan would enjoy the activities a little more now that he's older, and I think he did.  We did the hay ride/pumpkin hunt where they take you out to the Christmas trees and you hunt for baby pumpkins.  We also ponied up the big bucks so we could all ride the vintage fire truck.  They gave all the kiddos fire hats and even used the siren and hose.  Ethan thought it was pretty cool and talked about it for a couple of days, so I'm glad we did it.

the first pretty good "pumpkin patch" photo we managed to get

showing Daddy how good he is at the balance beam, just like in dance class

Ethan and his buddy Dax cracking up in the patch

another cute pumpkin patch picture

getting ready for the hay ride (with no hay, obvi)

hunting for pumpkins

on the fire truck

checking out the fire truck one last time before we leave

I really love fall and all the fun activities that come along with it.  We've already attended one Halloween party and we have another tomorrow, so I'll hopefully be sharing pictures soon.

The rest of the San Antonio Trip

I'm really trying to get back on top of this blog thing, but I'm pretty miserable at it.  I'm working on it, I promise.

Anyway, we did do more in San Antonio than just go to the zoo. I was able to spend a couple evenings out with some friends from college and Cory and I had a night out for a wedding.  Our days were jam-packed as well, as we hit all the typical San Antonio spots.

We stayed right on the riverwalk, so we spent time shopping and eating along the river.
  We also decided to take the boat tour (even though my mom and I had been on it about a bajillion times), but Cory hadn't and Ethan enjoyed it.

Me and E on the Riverwalk

listening to the music near the mall

Ethan doing his "I'm excited" face and hands as we waited for the boat ride to begin

 The next day we decided to head across the street to the Alamo and explore some Texas history.  Since we'd all been there before (minus Ethan), we just took a quick walk around and looked at a handful of exhibits which we appreciated much more as adults versus when we were elementary school students on a boring field trip.

the Alamo

 The last day we were there, we went over to The Market.  This was basically an excuse for Nana to spoil Ethan some more, and he ended up with a super cute dog marionette and an awesome kid sized guitar.  He loves both, and he made Daddy open the guitar right away so he could play with it.

learning to play his guitar

a family picture at The Market

It was a pretty nice little getaway and I'm glad we decided to make a long weekend out of the wedding.

Trip to the Zoo

About a month ago, we had a wedding to go to in San Antonio.  We decided to make a little vacation out of it, and of course, we HAD to go to the zoo for our little animal lover.  We talked about it for weeks, and E was super excited to finally go, he even picked out a zebra shirt for the occasion.

Arriving at the zoo

Just inside the entrance, there is a statue of lions, and Ethan was pretty impressed with it.  I don't think he was aware that there were actual animals in the zoo.

"Hewo wion" That's Ethan-speak for "hello lion," who needs L's anyway.

The first animals we saw were flamingos.  He enjoyed watching this group, however, later on there was another display of flamingos that scared him, so now he claims he's scared of flamingos and their noise.

Checking out the flamingos with Nana

The animal Ethan wanted to see the most was a macaw.  Every time you asked him which animal he was going to see at the zoo, that was his answer.  There were supposedly macaws in this area, but we failed to spot a single one.  Thankfully, he was happy feeding the fish, and the picture of the macaw sufficed.

feeding the fish

We then watched the hippos from a gloriously air conditioned area (it was late August so were trying not to die).  I think these were my favorite.

Observing the hippos

We finally got to the African area with all the big attractions we knew Ethan would love.  The elephants were a highlight.  If it wasn't so hot, we probably would have let him watch them a little longer.

Elephants!

He liked watching the elephants

Okay, maybe I take back my favorite and give it to the zebras instead.  They are pretty cool animals, and of course Ethan was thrilled to see them outside of a book.

E in his zebra shirt, with Daddy, in front of the zebras

 We also saw lions, tigers, bears (oh my!), and then there were a TON of birds.  Birds get old quick, especially when they start freaking Ethan out.  We also checked out the reptiles and lots of fish, but he wasn't as impressed.

Up close and personal with the bird (some sort of eagle maybe?)

 There was a small petting zoo that grabbed his attention for awhile, but all they really had was goats.

Checking out the goats in the petting zoo

 Toward the end of our day, we discovered a toddler area with scheduled animal meetings, but by then we were all hungry and hot, so we visited a gift shop and decided to call it a day.

On our way out following the snake

 We left the zoo already wanting to take Ethan back, hopefully when it's cooler so more of the animals are active.  He had a great time though, and next time we'll be pros.  

One last kiss for the lion

Summertime

Summertime around here is fun-filled, a little bit lazy, and very hot.  We started out this summer very excited and eager to visit the splash parks and pools Ethan enjoyed so much last year.  However, the heat eventually caught up with us, and the past few weeks, we haven't been out as much as Ethan would like.  I'm sure we still have several weeks of heat left, so I'll have to get us back out there again soon.

Since I've slacked about posting all the fun things we've been up to, I thought I'd share a few pictures to sum it all up.

First up, we have splash pads.  There are several around town, and I think we've visited about three so far this summer.  I found one that is my favorite so far because it's close, shady, and never crowded.  Ethan loves to run around filling up buckets of water.

Having fun at our first splash pad adventure of the season.

 We've also been visiting my mom's pool often.  Sometimes we'll head over on a weeknight just to get out of the house.  Ethan has a new love of fearlessly jumping in the pool.  Also, his swim jacket makes him very independent in the pool so we can be close to him, but not have him hang all over us constantly.  We also visit one of the city pools nearby every once in a while, and it's always a nice way to stay cool.

Lounging at Nana's

 Lastly, there's the backyard.  I decided at the beginning of the summer that we needed some sort of pool back there and that it had to be big enough to fit me too (why should he be the only one who gets to have fun?).  So we found a nice one with a cover and it has been a staple in our backyard fun all season.  It's the perfect depth for E to sit, splash, and play in, and it's been quite lovely for me as well.

Swimming in the backyard

Handsome man

Splashing fun

Also in the backyard, a water table, which Ethan makes use of in ways it's not quite intended for, but oh well.

All this has made me want to take him out to all these fun things again before summer's over.  I'm going to have to get on that.