Birthday Boy

Yesterday was Ethan's birthday- so of course I had to do portraits. It has been amazingly warm here- when we took these just before sunset it was still around 70 degrees. Crazy, yes, but if we can't have snow it might as well be warm, in my opinion. It's been nice to be able to take the kids to the park or out to do chalk drawings with just light jackets on. As it is only January, I am sure this won't last long.

So Ethan is officially one year old- I cannot believe how fast that went! It really makes me quite sad- I don't remember time flying so fast with Jace. Our party for Ethan was thrilling- I could just tell Ethan was excited all day long-LOL. Actually, it is kind of silly throwing a party for someone who has no idea what is going on. But out of tradition and for Jace's sake (he really WAS excited for Ethan's party) we had a little family party which consisted of Me, Tim, Jace and Ethan, one candle, one present and some cake and ice cream. We took some footage of it and I thought about posting it on here, but really it is probably the most boring video in all of history. Ethan just stared at his wrapped-up present, and refused to even touch it. For his birthday, we got him a little Leap Frog drum that plays music and ABCs when you drum it. Ethan loves it, but unfortunately so does Jace and I am about ready to THROW THE THING OUT THE WINDOW because Jace will not stop taking it away from Ethan! And the whining "But Mo-oom, Ethan has to SHARE his toys..." is driving me nuts! Sigh...... I have a feeling this is going to be a rough year! I suppose I should get used to it!

Ethan is so close to walking- he will occasionally stand on his own and has taken a few steps by himself when bribed with something. So any day now! Last night Tim and I were excitedly talking about being able to turn his car seat around, but we didn't know if he was yet 20 lbs. We don't own a scale (I have had issues with scales in the past- I hate them!) and his 1 yr well child visit is not til next week so we were trying to think of a way we could find out. So the inner inventive nerd in Tim came out and he devised a brilliant plan. First, he got out the step stool from the kids bathroom. Then, he placed a 15lb dumbbell on the center of the stool. Then he got out our ironing board, and balanced it (upside down) atop the dumbbell finding the center of gravity. Once that was done, Tim held Ethan and I held a 20lb dumbbell and at the same time, we place them on the ends. Unfortunately, it did not work as planned. Ethan wouldn't sit still enough and when I put the dumbbell down it started sliding. So we abandoned that plan. Then I had a brilliant idea. We got out a sheet, placed the 20lb weight in the center, gathered the ends together and lifted it, getting a good feel for how much it weighed. Then we did the same with Ethan- place him in the center of the sheet, gathered the corners together and lifted it up to see which felt heavier. Ethan loved this, by the way, in case you were thinking this sounded like some form of child abuse. The weight actually felt a lot heavier than Ethan, which doesn't seem possible to me. But again, the results were not solid enough to base such an important safety decision on . So we will have to wait for the Dr. to weigh him. It was fun trying something so inventive, though! I felt like I was on a Discovery Channel show!

Well, I hope everyone had a great Holiday- we are doing great here! I am keeping very busy this month, (despite have only a few sessions), with getting TWO websites built, getting some marketing plans going and with a 366 project I have started just for fun- I am taking at least one photo a day for the whole year(it's leap year)-I am determined to actually FINISH this resolution! I will try to keep some of these images posted on my blogs regularly.

I have tons of photos I will try to update with soon- so check back!