Better late than never???

This post was originally written on December 13; I was waiting to download the pics and then forgot all about it! Sorry in advance about the formatting on the pictures; my highschool yearbook advisor would be sorely disappointed! I'll post our more recent happenings in the next day or so, but in the meantime, enjoy some somewhat dated pictures and news!

We've had our first "big boy bed" nighttime injury (there have been a couple of bruises from monkeying around during the day and falling off). As far as we can tell, Ethan fell off the bed sometime Sunday night and hit his chin on the way down. He apparently crawled back in bed and went to sleep, and we found him with a bloody mess on his face the next morning. When we asked him what happened he tells us that he fell off the mattress and hit his chin, cried, and then got back in bed. The only thing we heard was one little cry around midnight that ended by the time I walked across the hall from Ella's room to his door (Ella likes to burn the midnight oil on occasion....and by occasion I of course mean days that end in "Y".) Note the injury and extreme bedhead Ethan's sporting in this picture!

Some of our sweetest moments these days are right before the kids' afternoon naps and when Ethan wakes up from his naps or in the morning. Ella has decided that when we're all in Ethan's bed it's time to pounce on him and giggle. It's hard to read books with two kids giggling like crazy! When I ask if we're done reading since they are distracted, Ethan always says "no, both sit up!" which lasts for exactly ten seconds until Ella divebombs him and the giggling starts again. She gets SO excited to see him when we go to get him after his nap that I have to hold her back a bit so he can wake up before being tackled. He can be really slow to wake up, but it really seems to start him off in a better mood these days. It's hard to stay cranky in the face of this much cuteness!

Last night at dinner Ella was fussing about something, and Ethan looked at us both and said with a tone I'm sure he's heard around here before, "What's Ella crying about?" It had an implied 'now' at the end of that question! For some reason it really cracked me up.

Ethan has become very infatuated with a line in one of the songs on the Raffi Christmas CD from the library. In the song it talks about Santa Claus having a cherry nose. Ethan asked me earlier this week about the cherry nose, then laughed and said "Ethan has cherry nose!" When I told him it meant a red nose, and asked if he had a red nose, he got very serious for a minute, thought, and then told me "I have red tongue..." Now he randomly starts laughing and tells us that he or somebody else in the family has a cherry nose.

This week Ethan is learning "Away in a Manger". Learning means I get to sing the same songs over and over and over again! Sometimes you don't realize until you're singing with a two year old how many of the traditional Christmas carols are difficult to sing because of their range or their vocabulary. He also likes us to sing Rudolph, although he calls it the "red nose reindeer song" when he's requesting it.

Both of our kids are very much in a "I do it myself" mode. With Ella it's food; she'd consistently rather eat finger foods or grab the spoon to do it herself when you're feeding her. She takes a two-handed approach to things she really likes, especially grated cheese. She's also a big fan of pears, carrots, broccoli, and crackers these days.

With Ethan it's anything you can imagine. He wants to do every aspect of his day by himself. He's getting better at climbing up and down from his booster seat and carseat (which means an extra few minutes added on to each errand we run), and he's able to do some of his dressing and undressing. He's been really proud lately that he can put on his socks. The other day he took one off and put it on his hand so he could take some "hot pots" out of his play kitchen's oven.

He is so busy watching and modeling after us these days! He likes to put on his dad's chef hat and "use grilling tools". He also comes running to help anytime I'm doing laundry or working in the kitchen. It's an interesting adventure trying to keep food hygienic and still involving a little helper as much as possible.

Ethan has already gotten quite a bit of play out of his first Christmas toys (the first of approximately 5 Christmas gift exchanges was over Thanksgiving with Brent's family in Ohio). As you can see, this flashlight is a helpful tool that's become his almost constant companion!

Getting a posed picture of the two of them can be quite a challenge these days. Ethan likes to make silly faces, and Ella loves to mess with her brother or investigate the tree! Despite Ethan's dazed look, this is one of my favorites...
In this one they both look a bit like they just got busted doing something they weren't supposed to be doing (touching the tree, perhaps?)

We are thoroughly enjoying (and thoroughly exhausted by) the adventure of the holidays with two little ones. As you can see, it's a wonderful life. A messy, sleep-deprived, mischief ridden, giggle-filled wonderful life.