Going to work!

Every day Ethan narrates Brent's process of getting ready to leave. One morning last week soon after Brent left, Ethan picked up his flashlight and balloon (one must be prepared) and said, "kiss...work...bye bye" (Ella got the kiss and I had to settle for a wave.)

Catching up with the weekend fun

As you can see, the kids had a great time at our playdate on Friday with some of the girls from our Sunday School and their kids. We had 9 kids under the age of 4...and next month is at our house (eek!)

Saturday morning our church had a preschool playday, with different rooms of the children's wing set up as a small town. There was a "beach", library, music room, construction zone, diner, bakery, dress up room, etc. Ethan had a ball! You can see several of the pics in the updated web album. This is one of my personal favorites...Ethan's first milkshake:

The straw never left his mouth!

On Monday the kids and I made a last-minute trip to visit a high school friend that was in the Houston area. We met halfway. I was anxious about how they would handle the drive, but since rural Texas is full of tractors, big trucks, and cows Ethan did quite well. Ella also slept like a champ and then woke up to make faces at her brother. Ethan did his first time on a McDonald's playscape. He was cautious yet giddy. I was not a huge fan, as when he got nervous and I crawled in to encourage him to go down the slide I found that they weren't really made for adults (imagine that), and it was hot and smelled like little kids' feet.

A few random bits:

Ethan has started telling us in the morning that the birds and the monkeys are asleep outside.

Ella has started rolling halfway across the room and then grinning proudly. She has also decided that oatmeal is tasty, and is now eating as fast as I can shovel it in.

Fire Chief

We tried out a sandwich place close to our house called "Firehouse Subs." It's nothing particularly special, but they have a firehouse theme to the restaurant. They do have two big things going for them:

1) Kids meals come with a fire hat
2) Kids meals come with Oreos

Both can be seen in the above picture.

Imagine getting this call...

Ethan made a special call to his grandparents today because he (let me put this somewhat discreetly since at some point in his life he will be horrified I posted this) had his first success story with the potty today! His summary of the event: "put wateh in dere!"

We have no illusions of being pottytrained this early, but consider it one small (joyous) step...

Fun times ahead

Today we had the most extended period of time where the kids "played" together without anybody ending up in tears (I'll refrain from naming names). Ethan got so tickled that Ella would reach out to grab him, and he would tell us what she was grabbing (hair, hand, chin, etc.) He would then circle the bouncy seat talking away to her. She loved it.

I've noticed that Ethan is stretching out a lot of one syllable words into a longer drawl...puhleese would be a common example. Is that the Texas sneaking in, some Louisiana influence, or just the funny toddler language we'll be blessed with over the next few years?

Today we had fun outside with the kiddie pool and sprinkler. I'm sure the neighbors appreciated the squeals of glee and the loud counting to 10 as we jumped (Ethan trying to jump is pretty funny...he grunts and stretches his arms in the sky but his feet don't leave the ground at the same time) around the water.

"Fwends" are "kiand"

These were the words of the day today. We had a playdate at our house with one of my friends and her one year old. I talked to Ethan before they came about how we should be kind to our friends and share (we've been practicing sharing with his toy dinosaur which is very cute but not the full experience, as the dinosaur doesn't protest when Ethan gets tired of sharing his cars!) Ethan walked around a good part of the morning saying "fwends" and "kiand". I can tell you that he is better at talking about sharing than actually doing it. We had plenty of teachable moments! I think we're very close to having more lessons on this, as Ella is more able to grab at things, and she has gotten a good hold of his hair a couple times as he's taken toys away from her.

There were challenges, but they both had fun. When they left Ethan stood at the front window crying "fwends! fwends!" in the most pitiful way.

Our first post

So we're going to try keeping a "family blog" in order to better keep everyone up to date on what's going on in our family. We hope we'll be disciplined enough to update it regularly so you'll want to make a bookmark and check in from time to time.

Saturday morning we went to a local nursery that also happens to have donkeys. Ethan was pretty happy to be there when they were changing out their water for the day -- that process interested him as much as the donkeys themselves.

Our new house has a limited number of trees, so we're starting to think about putting some more in this fall.

That evening we tried to wash the cars and let Ethan have fun in the water at the same time. We couldn't remember the last time we washed either car, but we were certain it had been at least a year.

Things were starting to get crazy at this time last year as we were in the selection process for the new house, fix-up process of the old house, and Ella was on the way. I used to wash my car quite often -- with each major life addition it drops further and further down the priority list.