Ta-da!

Believe it or not, we started this blog back in December 2009, but never finished it-ha! We finally got it ready to go, just a short year later! We figured that with our baby girl on her way in a couple months and with our sweet "big" boy just hitting his 2 year birthday, we better get going if we were going to get this blog started. Given that so many of our friends and family are spread across the U.S. we figured that this would be a great way to keep everyone up-to-date on things that happen in our household. Plus, I take a million pictures and then am so bad about sending them out after we come home. So this way, I can upload a couple as we go along. We'll try to update as often as we can so stay tuned! You can click on any photo throughout the blog to enlarge it.

Our first snow day!

We haven't had much snow at all in DC this year so far. The one "storm" that we did have closed down the whole city for almost 2 straight days! Kinda crazy--but it was SO nice to have Mike home for our first "snow day"! We have a teeny hill that is perfect for a 2-yr old to go sledding on. So we went all out--snow suit, sled and all...and I think we had a total of 4 inches. haha. Our neighbor Brady came over to play and the boys had fun in the snow. Here are some pics of the day. Ethan wanted to "help" daddy with the snow so we got out his shovel. Such winter fun! (click on any photos to make them larger). Ethan's new snow bibs are too small and they are 3T! He definitely looks like he "can't put his arms down" though with the whole set on! haha.

Sledding with Daddy and helping to shovel the snow!






Very helpful lifting the big blocks of snow into the yard.

Our sweet boy turns 2!

I can't believe how time is flying by! We kicked off this year by celebrating Ethan's 2nd birthday! We could not be more proud of him and all the he has accomplished so far. He is such a mild mannered, sweet and caring little boy. He listens very well, is well behaved (most of the time--haha!) and loves to explore life! It's so fun to watch his wonderment with everything that he does. He is such an intelligent, observant and fun loving kid. We could not feel more blessed!

For his birthday this year we did a construction theme. Ethan loves, loves, loves anything with wheels and anything construction-related. He couldn't be more excited when we drive down the road and see an arrow sign directing traffic around a construction zone. Or a loader on the side of the road. So that's what we did! From construction hats to an actual "dig zone" (aka a rice table) he had a blast. Here are a few pictures from the party.

Blowing out his candles!


Ethan's very own construction cake (a Mommy original!)--he could barely contain his excitement when he saw those construction vehicles on there! I made an Oreo road and used graham crackers for the dirt piles. The cones were candles and I printed the street signs on card stock, cut them out and attached them to craft picks. And his personalized billboard was the only way I could get the writing on the cake--excellent suggestion from my very creative hubby!!








Pictured here: The kids table--Noah, Adin, Daniel, TJ and Ethan enjoying their lunch; Ethan enjoying his birthday cake and ice cream--he says..."burr burr burr" when he eats ice cream; and the kids in the "dig zone" aka a rice table filled with construction vehicles and scoops. Very fun!

Making banana bread with Nana

I truly feel blessed to say that I have so many wonderful memories from childhood. One of my favorite memories was cooking and baking with my mom. When Nana came to visit us for Ethan's b-day, they made homemade banana bread. Ethan LOVED every second of this. He got to crack the eggs, add the sour cream (and eat some too), smoosh the bananas and mix and pour the batter. He was in heaven. Standing back to watch brought such joy to me and the memories of my childhood came pouring back! Here are some great shots that captured the project.

Six months and counting!

This pregnancy is whizzing by!! I feel like I just woke up and boom here I am at 6 mos pregnant with our daughter! I have started to look at the nursery decor, we ordered our nursery furniture and started to get organized for her arrival. We also settled on a name for her...which I won't say until she arrives! :) Here's me at 6 mos. Yikes! I think I was this big at 8 mos with Ethan.

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Today is Ethan's actual birthday. He is 2 years old! It is hard to believe that 2 years has gone by. It truly seems like just yesterday that he was born. Our sweet sweet baby boy. Mike and I could not feel more blessed to be his mom and dad. God has truly blessed us with the most amazing gift. From the way he laughs, to how he smiles with his eyes (just like his daddy!) and the way that he softly pats us on the back when we hold him, we are so in love with this little guy. At his 2 year check-up the doctor was so pleased with how he is doing! Happy and healthy and a "smart cookie" as the doctor said. He is measuring off the charts for height & 90th percentile for weight.

Here are some pictures of his birthday cake that we had the night of his birthday. Nana flew in to celebrate with Ethan. That morning I made his favorite breakfast and then we played and went to Chuck e Cheese for lunch. It was a very laid back and fun day!

Ethan decided during dinner that he really wanted a birthday hat. So Mike disappeared and came back with a homemade creation. Such a good daddy!












Ethan thoroughly enjoyed his birthday cake! He licked the icing off the candle and then after we cut his piece and he ate it--he picked up the rest of the cake! It was hysterical.













Our family photo that night, Nana and Ethan and a picture of what was left of the cake after he was done!

Ethan and Miss Lauren

Ethan started speech therapy back in October. He is doing so well with it! He has low muscle tone in his mouth, which from what I have read and what our speech therapist explained--is a very common issue with boys. It's also very fixable. "Miss" Lauren (aka "La-La") comes to our house 1x a week and works with Ethan. It's all based on play so he doesn't even know it's work! It's truly a blessing. Ethan has started to say so many words now! We could NOT be more proud of his progress. Lauren calls him her "super star" kiddo. She said that his fine motor skills are very advanced, along with his receptive language and his attention span with her. Lauren does some really fun things with Ethan. Here are two examples. Making homemade playdough and a marshmallow snowman.

While making homemade playdough, Lauren works on articulation. "Put in", "Dump", "Sticky", "Done", etc. Ethan started to spread the spoon on her hands and he just thought that was the best!








Here's the masterpiece snowman that Ethan and Lauren made. They used icing to put the marshmallows together, pretzels for the arms and mini marshmallows for the eyes. Sprinkles for the hair. And notice that this snowman has a bellybutton? Ethan wanted to add that on. :) This session was about words like "push", "on top", "more", "stack", "yum yum" etc.

















And the finished product--"ta da!"

Our little grocery helper

Ethan loves when I come home with the groceries and he is a huge help, actually! He goes through each bag and hands us the items in the bags. It really makes the grocery unloading go so much faster and he loves ever second of it! Plus, with my big pregnant belly--to not have to bend down to the grocery bags is AMAZING!

It's a girl!

When we first found out we were expecting baby #2, both of us had said how nice it would be to have a baby girl but both of us just prayed for a healthy baby! I remember when people asked me early on..."what do you think you are having" I would say..."I think it's a girl". But, before our ultrasound I went to visit my Nunny in Pittsburgh who recently had a stroke. The stroke affected her verbally. So she really can't say too much. When I went to see her, I was talking to her and telling her about the baby--I said, "Nunny...what do you think it is?" She looked at me and said with complete clarity--"it's a boy...but you know that." My mom and I were SHOCKED. I thought for sure she had to be right. Maybe she knew something I didn't?? Who knows. So day by day I really became uncertain about what it was going to be boy or girl...but I still had the gut feeling it was a baby girl.

We went for our 20 week ultrasound and the baby was measuring right on for a 4/14/11 due date and everything looked good. The baby's legs were so tight together that the ultrasound tech was having a hard time seeing what it was. But then all of a sudden right at the end of the ultrasound, she said..."oh, I can see now--you guys are having a baby GIRL!" We were both so shocked to hear the confirmation and so excited! Ethan didn't know what the hoopla was about and we kept saying--"buddy...you're going to have a baby sister" his response...."no, no, no." haha.

We feel truly blessed that the baby is growing as she should be and extra blessed to welcome a daughter to the world! (The first Haymaker girl too!)