Ethan 3 month pictures

Jeff took these pictures of Ethan about a month ago, and I'm just now getting around to posting them. Better late than never!

Below is a picture of Kaitlyn at the same age and in (mostly) the same pose. Two bald babies!

A Busy Weekend

I guess I'm making up for lost time with three posts in a week! The weather this weekend was beautiful and we couldn't bear to stay inside. So here's a little recap of our fun-filled weekend.

On Friday, Jeff was playing at a local restaurant. His gigs usually start pretty late, well past the kids' bedtimes. But this one started at 6 pm, so I was able to take Kaitlyn and Ethan to watch their daddy play guitar. That's all Kaitlyn could talk about during the car ride over there. We sat right in front of the stage. Lest anyone worry about potential hearing loss, it was a restaurant and people were eating, so it wasn't too loud...and it was more of an acoustic set, not his usual rocking out. Anyway, Kaitlyn was fascinated and kept pointing to Jeff on the stage and saying "Hi Daddy." Her face lit up when he gave her a shout out from the stage :) Here's a sweet picture of Kaitlyn and her hero.

On Saturday, we took advantage of a free event at the nearby local agricultural center. They had farm animals available for the kids to pet. Normally Kaitlyn is a little reserved in new situations and has to be coaxed to try something new. But she marched right up to the horses and started petting them. She even put her hand right up to their mouths and fed them. She's still talking about the "big horsie" and the "little horsie." Guess she's not shy around animals.

Then we moved on to sheep. It wasn't long before she was instructing the sheep to "come over here and eat!"

After going back home for naps (all four of us managed to nap at the same time! A miracle!), we headed downtown for more outdoor adventure. Kaitlyn has a particular passion for "downtown." She usually asks several times a day to "go downtown and see tall buildings." She even likes to replicate downtown with her building blocks and pretend that her toys are going downtown. So we went to the fountains at Bicentennial Mall. She loved splashing in the runoff stream from the fountains, but didn't care for the fountains themselves. Somehow she managed to stay mostly dry amid the shooting streams of water.

And she got a special treat when a train went by. Here's a picture of her standing in front of the tracks. She loves trains.

The only way she would run through the fountains is if Daddy ran with her. I think Jeff got wetter than she did!

Ethan was hanging out in his stroller for most of the time, but he did get to enjoy some views too. Here he is checking out the fountains.

Ethan and Mommy in front of the state capitol.

Ethan at 4 months...

Ethan had his 4 month check-up this morning. He weighs a whopping 19 pounds and 2 ounces. No wonder my arm feels like it's about to fall off when I carry him in his car seat! For comparison, Kaitlyn was 17 pounds at 4 months, and everyone thought she was a big baby. He is 27.25 inches long and is 97th percentile in everything. He has started rolling over from back to front and loves to kick his arms and legs wildly when in his bouncy seat or on the floor. He's not sitting on his own yet, but he loves to sit up when supported. (The picture above was taken about 3 seconds before he started slowly tipping over.) And he will be starting on some yummy rice cereal soon.

And just for fun...the other three months as well!

Catching Up...

The past two months have been a whirlwind of activity for me. I taught a course at Lipscomb in May, two courses in June and a teacher's workshop last week. I was working very long hours each day, so the blog had to fall by the wayside for a time. But now all of my summer activities are over and I finally get to be at home during the day! So here's what we've been up to lately...

Kasha has been inside more since it's been hot. And Kaitlyn loves it. Here is a picture of Kaitlyn "hugging" Kasha. I'm sure Kasha would rather be anywhere else, but she's a patient dog. Sometimes I take pity on her (Kasha) and put her in her crate during the day so that she can have some peace and quiet.

Since our neighborhood doesn't have a pool, we have to improvise. She loves "Hermie" the water caterpillar. Actually, I should say she loves the idea of him. When his arms are flailing and shooting water everywhere, she runs away. It takes lots of coaxing to get her close enough to get wet. But she's laughing the whole time whether she's getting wet or not, so I guess she's having fun.

We had our annual trip to downtown to watch the sunset on the longest day of the year. It's so much more fun now that Kaitlyn can explore. She loves "downtown" and talks about it frequently. Actually anything with tall buildings is "downtown" to her. From the Capitol, she was able to see the trains and explore lots of interesting statues and flowers. Ethan slept most of the time :)

Daddy explaining things to her as she listens intently.

For the 4th of July weekend Jess, Adam and Noah came to visit. Since all of the kids/grandkids were going to be in one place, Mimi and Papa paid us a surprise visit too. Unfortunately rain ruined our plans to see the downtown fireworks, but we caught the tail end of the Brentwood show. For some reason, Ethan (our happy-smiley baby) was in a bad mood most of the day...probably too many people around and getting off schedule. So the attempt to get a picture of all three grandkids did not go well. Noah and Kaitlyn are trying to figure out what's going on with Ethan! Noah, get used to babies crying!!!

Kaitlyn finally had someone to sit on the other side of her glider.

Kaitlyn's one request every single day is to go outside and "Swing high!" Papa was all too happy to oblige. Notice the absolute glee on her face.

We also got to spend some time at a friend's pool during that weekend. There was a kiddie pool that was perfect to get used to water again. She hasn't been swimming since last summer.

I was a little nervous that she would need some time to warm up to the idea of the big pool, but when I took her in, she loved it immediately. So we put on her swim vest and started giving her some informal "lessons." By the end of the afternoon, she was putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles, and she was jumping off the side of the pool into our arms. And she didn't seem bothered at all when her head went under water. Maybe swim lessons are in our future next summer.

More pictures of Ethan coming soon...