Decorating for Christmas

We spent Thanksgiving at home, just the 3.5 of us. We had delicious "Thanksgiving chicken kiev", stuffing, and green bean casserole. Yummy! We also decided to try putting up our Christmas tree (we opted last year to have a small one on our counter top to avoid disaster). Ethan is quite confused as to why we have a tree in our living room. He walks by it, stops looks at it puzzled and says "tree, lights". It has survived 24 hours though, so I think we might be safe to put a few non-breakable ornaments on it!

Destruction...

Ethan woke up on Wednesday morning and realized within about 60 seconds that all of his toys had been neatly put away. He got a twinkle in his eye and the destruction of the house began. Sigh, will my house ever be picked up for more than 5 minutes?! Good thing he is so darn cute (especially in these Lightning McQueen jammies)!

18.5 weeks down...

Just a quick update on the pregnancy, everything is going really well. I am still wearing my regular clothes at 18.5 weeks (with Ethan I was in maternity clothes around 14 weeks). I feel good most of the time; I do get worn out quickly, but can't complain. My next appointment is December 1st and that will be the ultrasound. As with Ethan we will not find out the sex of the baby until delivery day. Stay tuned for further updates, just thought those living far away might want to see the growing belly.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ethan and Friends!

We had a birthday party at our house yesterday for Ethan and his friends, who will all be turning 2 in the next few weeks. I met this amazing group of mommies just after Ethan was born and don't know what I would do without them! Last year we celebrated their birthdays by having a picnic and taking part in the March of Dimes Walk. This year we decided to do something a little different and we had a potluck party at our house and collected food for our local food shelf. We collected kid type foods like mac and cheese, peanut butter, baby food, etc. We also had some that contributed "birthday kits" which consisted of cake mix, frosting, paper plates, napkins, and small party favors that will also be donated to the food shelf, in hopes that another child will be able to celebrate their birthday. I have a dining room table full of food and 7 birthday kits so far (and have more food coming in the next few days from people who couldn't make it)! The party was a success! Ethan had a great time and was fast asleep by 8:30pm last night (and still asleep at 8am today)!

Thanks to everyone for making last night such a huge success! And a big Happy Birthday to the most amazing 2 year olds I have ever met!

Poor Visken! :-(

Well Visken had surgery yesterday to remove two skin tags (basically benign skin tumors). The one skin tag was on his leg and was getting quite big. He was continually biting it so we decided before it broke open and got infected we would have it removed. The second one however was on his eyelid. He had this one removed in August when he had dental work done, but this one unfortunately grew back. It was causing pressure on his eye, so his eye was continually blood shot. Thankfully a really great friend of ours is a vet at the University of Florida Vet School (and watches Visken when we are away and loves him dearly), so we scheduled him for surgery yesterday. Surgery went well, however Visken has to wear this lovely cone on his head for the next 2 weeks and have eye ointment put in his eye twice a day. (The last time they just basically cut the tag off so he didn't have the cone, but this time they took off a fair chunk around the area so they had to stitch the eyelid back together.) Then in 2 weeks we will take him over to Julie and she will remove his stitches. Ethan was quite confused last night as to why Visken had this ridiculous thing on his head, and Visken was recruiting him to "help" get it off so it should be interesting if this actually stays on his head for 2 weeks. And...we have a birthday party at our house this weekend for Ethan and his playgroup friends, so we will have 7+ soon to be 2 year olds in our house. Poor Visken!

Spicy!

I have been doing some volunteer teaching at our local Red Cross, last night I taught first aid and after class I decided to stop at Bentos on the way home for dinner (Chinese/Thai/Japanese type food). When I got home and sat down to eat Ethan saw that I had noodles ("spaghetti") under my red curry beef. I told him several times that it was really spicy and he wouldn't want it, and finally I gave up and decided to let him try for himself. At first it was "m-m-m-m", then when the burning started to take place he stuck out his tongue and was trying to wipe it off...."ooo, ooo, ooo" and lots of whimpering. But then he went over to the wall and started to lick it! Needless to say Ethan wasn't a fan of the red curry beef!

Another funny story...Ethan refused to wear pajamas last night to bed and when we tried to put them on him he took them and tried to hide them under the couch!

The Foam Pit...

We took the cushions off the couch over the weekend to vacuum under there. Ethan thought "what a fantastic idea for a foam pit", ever since he has been happily bouncing and playing on the couch cushions. (He goes to a gym in town on Friday mornings for a tumbling type program and they have foam pits there which he has absolutely no fear of and happily dives in.) Who needs toys anyway?

As you notice from the picture Ethan is not wearing any pants. He has also discovered that he can take his pants off by himself (still working on the shirt). He is happiest lately when he is running around the house in just a diaper. I did catch him the other night running around without a diaper, thankfully that wasn't disastrous but I know our day is coming.

His vocabulary gets better everyday, although I feel as if we still have a ways to go. I asked him today what a lion says and he responded with "roar"! I also caught him today actually trying to "read" a book. One of these days he will be jabbering up a storm!