Is it too late for a 4th of July post?

I don't really care, I'm doing one anyway.

For the Fourth, we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house as we have for the past few years. You can see fireworks from their front yard, so it's really Ethan-friendly, meaning he isn't scared of the loudness. We couldn't decide if we should keep him up or not, but ended up going for it, and he seemed to really enjoy the show.

However, the big news of the day was this:

A new Cozy Coupe from his wonderful Nana. You know, cause kids are supposed to get gifts on Independence Day. I'm sure Ethan wouldn't mind making it a tradition.

He loves his Coupe. Most of the time he just sits in it.

He also likes to push it around. He really does have a great Nana.

When he wasn't playing with the Coupe, he was playing with a stick. Surprise, surprise.

Or just hanging with the big boys trying to get in on the ball game.

Then as it got dark, he was given a glow necklace, which he loved.

Finally, he cuddled up on everyone and watched the fireworks. He is NEVER this still or cuddly, but he was wiped out. He barely stayed awake to see the show, but I think he was glad he did.

And that's my belated post. Hey, at least I'm posting, right?

Catching up, in pictures

There are no excuses. I am a really bad blogger. I'll spare you all my "reasons" for not posting and go straight to catching you up on what we've been doing in the last month or so by showing you a few pictures.

First up, my mom's birthday was the beginning of June. Ethan had fun swimming with his Great Uncle A.J.:
And then he dug into some chocolate cream pie:
We didn't exactly let him do this. I was putting everything out on the table, and before you know it, that kid had a mouthful of whipped cream. He certainly is his father's son.

We've also been hitting a few birthday parties for some of E's friends. This is one of his favorite attraction at all his buddies' houses, the Cozy Coupe:
He also really likes to climb up slides. Not slide down them, climb up them:

We've been working on his piano skills:
He plays the piano a LOT at home and where I work.

We've been visiting more sprinkler parks around town. He's now more interested in walking around outside of them:

We tried finger painting. He wasn't interested:
He ate a little bit and then decided he'd rather play.

He hung out by the pool at a family friend's house:

He went to watch Daddy play volleyball on Father's Day:
And enjoyed cooling off in the misters while we were there:

So that's a bit of what the little monkey has been up to. I have more to share soon, but for now I'll leave you with one more picture of my favorite little 15 month(!?!) old:



P.S. to a couple of my most loyal readers: We miss you Uncle Gary and Aunt Elecee! Hope you haven't given up on reading the blog, I'll try to do better!

Homemade Sprinkler Park

Since Cory misses out on all our fun sprinkler park adventures during the week, I decided to make our own on the back porch so he could see just how much Ethan enjoys the water. My grandparents and aunt Paula gave Ethan the greatest water fun gift which included a kid sprinkler, pool, and bathing suit, among other things. So here's E trying them out:

He loved the sprinkler.

and drinking the water

then, he would crawl in the pool and back out again

and then do some laps around the sprinkler. It got a little slippery and it caused a few belly flops, which he thought was hilarious. He especially liked to chase us around the deck and splash. It was some good weekend fun.

And then here's a couple pictures from one of the big kid sprinkler parks we went to:

He liked it at first

but then I think it was a little intimidating so he would only hold our hands and walk around (here he's with the girl I nanny for, Rebecca).

The handsome boy taking a break and having a snack. How did he become a little man already?!?

More videos!

Ethan's first birthday:

Some shots of Ethan's first steps:

Ethan showing off his current tricks:

And the other day in the bath tub he started doing this, which was too funny not to get on camera:

Video time

So, we finally caught up on all our videos. Here's a few flashback compilations from his first year.

Ethan months 6 and 7:

Ethan months 8 and 9:

Ethan months 10 through 12:

I'll have some more recent ones tomorrow. (I had to take advantage and get at least two blog posts out of this).

Action Shots

See what the monkey is doing? Walking! It's about time, huh? It started a couple of weeks ago with a few steps here and there, and has progressed into long strolls. He still prefers crawling over walking, but he will do it quite a bit at home. I'm soaking up the time I have left before I'm constantly chasing him around.

We have video evidence and I'll post it soon, I promise.

Summertime is upon us

Since the weather has been warm enough, we've been enjoying the outdoors a lot more. Actually, it's pretty much just hot, so we're spending a lot of time around water.

Ethan received a water table for his birthday from our friend Don, and he absolutely loves it. We play with it almost every day. Here's pictures from when we first tried it out:




Can you tell he likes it?

We also took a trip to a sprinkler park for the first time. E was a little apprehensive at first, but after awhile he was crawling all over the place getting nice and wet. Only problem was, he kept trying to crawl away from the water onto the hot cement. He'd get mad at me for not letting him, and he'd get mad if he made it far enough for the cement to hurt his hands and knees. Crazy kid, I tried to tell him I was helping him out.

Checking out the water with his buddy Kinley.

Figuring out it's pretty fun.

Serving himself from the soggy goldfish buffet with his friend Connor. Kinda gross, I know.

We had a lot of fun though, and are going back tomorrow, and probably dozens of times before summer is over. Hopefully the heat won't kill us...

I'm back. About the Beach trip

Sorry there hasn't been any blog updates lately. I just haven't felt up to it, and it's mainly because of this specific post. However, I really wanted to share pictures from our trip to the beach, so I didn't want to skip the post altogether.

Explanation: Our trip to Port Aransas was bittersweet. It was Ethan's first time at the beach, but we weren't exactly there on vacation. My grandpa passed away on April 16. He had been fighting cancer for about 6 months, but the fight ended. He and I were very close, to say the least. He was like my grandpa, father, friend, and hero all wrapped into one. It has been rough, and I will miss him forever.

Papa wanted our whole family to go to Port Aransas and spread his ashes, so that's what we did.

Ethan really enjoyed the beach, just as any boy with Charles as a middle name should. He probably crawled miles along the beach checking out the sand and the shells. He even enjoyed the water once he got used to it.

It was actually a nice trip and it was really great to have Ethan there being his happy, hammy self. I can't wait to go back in the many years to come.