Ethan at 10 months

Ethan turned 10 months old last week. I'm a little late posting his monthly picture because we were all sick with a nasty stomach bug last week. It's no fun having two little ones sick at the same time! But thankfully we're all doing much better.

I actually got both kids to look at the camera at the same time! Now we just have to work on smiling :)

"Snow" Day

Most of the schools in middle TN, including Kaitlyn's preschool, were closed for a snow day today. Which would be fantastic if there were actually snow to go along with the snow day. The weather forecasters were calling for 1 - 2 inches of snow, but as it turns out, they overestimated by a bit. Around mid-morning, we finally got a few of the much-anticipated snow showers, and we wound up with a light dusting that was just enough for the kids to play in.

Kaitlyn eagerly bundled up to go outside. Fortunately, she thinks any amount of snow is great. The first thing she wanted to do was build a snowman. Kind of tough when there isn't much snow. But we managed to build a tiny one, and she was thrilled. Here she is showing off the work in progress. Sadly, the finished product wasn't much bigger!

And since this is officially Ethan's first snow, I had to snap a picture of him too. It was a little challenging managing two small ones outside in the cold, wet snow by myself...especially when one is a crawler. So Ethan wound up in the safe confines of the stroller so that I could keep him off of the ground and still have hands free to tend to Kaitlyn and take pictures. I did get him out later and let him touch the snow. He wasn't very impressed and kept pulling his hand away. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of him playing in the snow because I would have needed 4 more arms to manage all of that. Maybe next time!

Christmas Celebrations

For the first time in our married life, we were able to be at our house for the whole day on Christmas! No traveling! My mom and Jim were gracious enough to break with tradition and come to our house to celebrate this year so that we didn't have to travel with both kids. Kaitlyn was looking forward to Santa coming. She dutifully left out cookies and milk the night before. But when I went in her room the next morning and told her that Santa left her a lot of presents, she threw her face into her pillow and mumbled something about not wanting to see Santa. She thought he was still in the house! After finally convincing her that Santa was safely back home at the North Pole, she decided to come out of her room and investigate the presents. Eventually she warmed up to the whole thing and enthusiastically opened presents. It took a while to get through them all, though, because she wanted to stop and play with every toy that she opened.

Ethan didn't know quite what to make of everything, but he enjoyed playing with his new bus.

When mom and Jim came in with their presents, it was like Santa had come all over again. This helicopter was a big hit with Kaitlyn. In fact, her favorite toys were a train, a bus and a helicopter. Her fascination with transportation and vehicles continues! She's already commandeered Ethan's new Thomas the Train book and his Cars book.

Ethan will eventually like his new bath boat, but right now he's much more into eating wrapping paper!

Kaitlyn is showing Gran her new Dora book.

The next day, we went to Memphis to celebrate with Jeff's family. Everyone converged on Jess' house for a few days. 12 adults and 4 small kids all in the same house! But it was tons of fun!!

As always, Kaitlyn loves playing with Papa Greg. She's showing off her new blocks to him.

Noah got a new drum set for Christmas (Jess and Adam are much braver than I am!!). I really thought Kaitlyn would hate it since she's not a fan of loud noises, but I guess seeing Noah play it put her at ease. She eagerly took her turn at the drums and pounded to her heart's content!

One night, some friends came over for a jam session with Jeff and Andrew. Noah was eager to join in the fun with his drums. When he got finished, Kaitlyn took over and tried her hand and playing with the boys. I really hope she inherits some of Jeff's musical abilities. She's getting nothing musical from my side of the family!!

A family picture

Gigi and Bobby with Ethan

Kaitlyn and Ethan at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. One day, I'm going to get a picture where they are sitting beside each other and both are looking at the camera and smiling. One day.

Ethan at 9 months

I took Ethan to the doctor yesterday for his 9 month checkup. As it turns out, he has a mild ear infection, which may explain his fussiness lately. It's either the ear infection or those two enormous front teeth that are slowly coming in. Although they've broken through the gum now, they still have a way to go. Ouch!

Ethan weighed in at 26 pounds (97th percentile) and is 30 inches tall (90th percentile). He's crawling like a maniac and gets into everything! He requires constant supervision these days and does not like to be contained. He's pulling up to standing on a lot of things. I can tell that he wants to walk so badly, but fortunately (for me!) it's going to take him a little while longer to figure that one out!

Preschool Christmas Party

Last week, Kaitlyn had her Christmas program and party at her preschool. It was her first time on stage "performing" for an audience. She's sitting in the middle on the front row. The kids on stage were from the 2's, 3's and 4's classes. They were so adorable in their Christmas outfits. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes and they sang several cute Christmas songs.

Kaitlyn didn't really sing or do any of the hand motions. She was content to look around at all the people in front of her and smile.

After the program, we went up to her classroom for a Christmas party. Santa and Mrs. Claus came for a visit, but she was having none of that this time. She was too enthralled with her snacks :)

Even a festive Ethan got in on the fun. He'll have to wait a couple of years before he gets his own preschool party.

Here's Kaitlyn with her beloved teachers, "Miss" Sheryl and "Miss" Sarah. They both are wonderful women and teachers and they make things so much fun for the kids. I'm convinced that they are a big part of why Kaitlyn loves school so much.

Opryland

Last week, we made our annual trek out to Opryland Hotel to see all the Christmas decorations. The kids were so enthralled with it all that they weren't remotely interested in posing for pictures.

Ethan was perplexed by the prickly Christmas tree.

Here's Kaitlyn reluctantly posing for a picture in front of the poinsettia tree.

And now a cheesy smile. Something in between would have been nice...say, a natural smile???

We bundled them up to enjoy the outside lights. Kaitlyn insisted on wearing my scarf which looks big enough to wrap around her entire body. She loves pointing out all the Christmas lights that she sees as we're driving in the car. But I'm pretty sure that this display left her speechless!

Bath Time and Rudolph

With his newfound mobility, Ethan has been getting more inquisitive each day. Today, he just had to see what was going on during Kaitlyn's bath.

And then he tried to get in on the action. Fortunately Kaitlyn was a good sport about it all.

What a precious little boy! By the way, we are singing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" around here these days. His two front teeth are soooo close to coming in. His poor swollen gums look so painful. But, as always, he continues to smile and be in the best mood.

This week, Kaitlyn came home from preschool dressed as Rudolph. She graciously agreed to model her costume. Too cute!

Breakfast with Santa

There were no tears this year! Ethan was pretty fascinated by the whole thing...too distracted to really smile. We let Ethan go first so that Kaitlyn would have a little extra time to "warm up" to Santa. She shocked us all by walking up to him and sitting in his lap without any fuss at all. We were so proud of our brave little girl!

She even told Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She said, "I want a present." Shouldn't be too hard for Santa to honor that request!

'Tis the Season

I can already tell that this Christmas season is going to be a fun one now that Kaitlyn is old enough to enjoy some of the festivities. The first thing she does every morning is ask us to turn on the Christmas lights on the tree. And she loves pointing out all the decorations that she sees as we drive down the road. She's already learning some of the words to Rudolph and Jingle Bells, which is a good thing since I love Christmas music and listen to it all the time in December.

Last night, we braved the cold to enjoy the Nashville Christmas Parade. I have such fond memories of going to the annual Christmas parade in my hometown when I was a kid, and I was excited about Kaitlyn seeing some of those same things. And this parade did not disappoint: floats, clowns, fire trucks, motorcycles, horses, marching bands--everything you could ask for in a parade. I have to admit, though, that seeing a Christmas parade as an adult is not quite as thrilling as seeing one as a child. But Kaitlyn had a wonderful time and didn't mind the cold one bit. Ethan was content to sit in the stroller and watch all the people. Here's a couple of pictures of the kids all bundled up.

Today we enjoyed our church's annual Family Christmas Breakfast. Kaitlyn loved the inflatable snowman on stage.

We tried to get a good picture of Ethan in front of the decorations, but as you can see, he's only interested in one thing now...getting from point A to point B!

There was a live nativity scene outside that all the kids loved. These animals were amazingly docile and were nonplussed by all the chaos of the little kids. Kaitlyn was in heaven running from animal to animal and petting them to her heart's content.

She also did amazingly well with Santa--no tears at all! We were shocked. I'll post the Santa pictures when I get them.

And this has nothing to do with Christmas, but here's a picture of Ethan pulling up to his knees. He just learned to crawl this week, and now he's already trying to stand up?!?!?! I really need to get serious about babyproofing soon!

We have a crawler!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Ethan officially entered the world of crawling! Each day he gets a little faster and can cover longer distances. If we leave him in the (carpeted) floor in his room, it's not long until we hear the little pat-pat-pat of his hands on the hardwoods in the hall--coming to find us to see what he's missing. So now the vigilant supervision begins. Poor Kaitlyn is getting very stressed trying to keep her toys out of his reach. Little does she know that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We're still working on the concept of sharing...and I have a feeling we'll continue to work on it for a looooong time :)

We went to my mom's house for our traditional Thanksgiving feast. Mom and I decided to forgo Black Friday this year and instead just spent the time at home, relaxing and working on a few projects around her house. We took Kaitlyn to the town square to let her get some energy out. Here are a couple of pictures of her at the courthouse.

We also put up our Christmas tree this week. Kaitlyn was so thrilled to help with the decorations. She decided that it was her job to hang all of the ornaments on the tree, so we ended up with a large concentration of ornaments about 2 - 3 feet off the floor. Here she is in her pajamas, being very deliberate with the placement of an ornament.

She goes to visit Santa on Saturday. We're predicting another round of tears this year, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised :)