Expanding Belly and Lots of Kisses

My belly is growing (I am 26 weeks) and Ethan is going to be the best big brother! I am so thankful for the timing of this pregnancy and the enthusiam Ethan has for the baby! We are very blessed!

I don't know a day that goes past where I don't have my shirt lifted and immediately a little face pushes his lips on my belly to kiss and says "Mmmmmmaaahh. I love you baby!" then he looks up at me and asks "Does the baby LOVE my kisses Mommy?".

I don't want to forget these moments... I love being a Mommy!

Counting with Beans

Counting is a very popular activity in our house lately. Anything and everything gets counted!

Due to the interest and desire to learn to recognize more numbers past 10, we started an activity today with counting beans and matching them up to number cards. Ethan still sometimes mixes up 6,8,9 but this helps him with his ordering and numeral recognition.




I created a table in MS Publisher with numbers 0-30, printed and cut them out. Ethan picked the paper color. He has informed me many times that his favorite color is blue. So we went with blue.

I mixed up the numbers 0-10 and had him begin the activity by ordering them across the top of the mat. He did a great job and then we started with the beans. I showed him how to do zero and 1 and then he went from there. Rather than placing the bean directly under the number one by one, he preferred to count them into his hand and then place them on the mat. This worked fine for the smaller numbers but I suggested that he place them one by one so that if he looses count, he has an easier time counting them on the mat under the number.

We finished the activity 0-10 and he wanted to count more (because there was more beans in the bowl). So I moved the number 10 under the number 0 and helped him order the numbers 10-15, so that he could see the relation of the numbers above with the teen numbers below.

He can count past 50 on his own, but he can only recognize numbers up to 11, so this was a little more difficult but once he started to figure out that the end numbers are similar and they keep going up in order, he didn't want to be done at 15.

"Where is 16, Mommy? 16 should come next!"

I informed him that we were only going to work on the numbers up to 15 and once he got those we would move on to 16-20. He was okay with that and completed the activity.

He has also been very interested in clocks and telling time over the last few weeks, so I am going to create an activity where he matches up the numbers on the clock with the blue numbers I have cut out, but I want to make sure that he knows what 11 and 12 are before we head onto that activity.

No Lion... Ethan is THREE!

We celebrated Ethan's birthday today with our extended family. He had requested a Lion themed birthday party, so of course I made a lion birthday cake. I found a picture online of a cake I thought I could try and copy, and it didn't turn out too bad. He loved it and it was yummy too!

My family from Cedar Rapids came to celebrate. It was great to see everyone!



Our local family also attended!




Ethan got a ton of presents and had a great time visiting with everyone.


He had so much fun that he ended up falling asleep on Daddy's shoulder after all the fun was over.

Will it ever stop??

Wow. I don't know if I have ever seen so much snow at once in my life! I couldn't believe it when we woke up this morning to a whopping 16+ inches!!

We went out as a family to clear off the sidewalk, driveway and to take pictures of all the snow. I am stunned. It is going to shut the roads down for a while to get everything cleared off! WOW!


Ethan went out with his ruler and was surprised to find out that it disappeared under all the snow. I showed him the picture from yesterday and he was amazed at all the snow too.
(This picture was taken at 10:30AM on 12/09/09)

After Derrick finished snow blowing the front sidewalk we took our rulers down to measure and find out how much snow we had. You can see from the picture that we had a good 16 inches just on our sidewalk! Amazing!


Sad thing about all this snow is the cold temps that came along with it (the windchill puts the temps much below zero) and due to this, we are unable to play in the snow. Even if we could, it doesn't pack because it is so light... so no snowman either.

Here Comes the Snow!

Today it started to snow... we had about 2 inches on the ground to begin with and the weatherman is predicting another 12-18 inches. We decided we would go out while we could and play in it and measure it for some before and after shots.

Ethan enjoyed measuring it with his ruler and he looks forward to how much snow we are going to get today and tomorrow.
(This picture was taken at 10:30AM on 12/8/09.)

Winter is officially here!

Since we are stuck inside, we decided to make Christmas cards for our family. I found some great ideas from Family Fun Magazine and had to try them out. We had a lot of fun and it took us most of the day to make 14 cards.




We were pretty impressed with the results and our family should really enjoy them!

Ear Infection #2 and a lesson on fluids and liquids

Ethan stayed overnight with Grandma and Grandpa Huffey last night. I woke early and had a cup of tea, read a few articles, and enjoyed the quietness of the house when my quiet time was interrupted by the ringing phone. It was Grandma, and Ethan was crying in the background that he wanted to go home. This was very unlike him as he usually begs me to let him stay, but she informed me he had been complaining of a severe ear ache and would not let up the crying.

I left home and rushed over to pick him up and we visited Dr. Timboe for a diagnosis. On the way we talked about what Dr. Timboe would do and what he would look for and the possibility of needing medicine after the exam if he had an ear infection. I told him Dr. Timboe would look in his ears. He asked me what he would see in his ears. I then replied "He will tell you when we get there." then Ethan urgently replied "NO. YOU tell me Mommy!". I smiled and began to tell him about his ear drum and how it can accumulate fluid that can cause him to have pain. It was a great conversation in the car and when we got there, Ethan was all ready for his exam.

He sat on the table like a 'big boy' and did everything Dr. Timboe asked. He opened his mouth, let him look in his ears and giggled while he listened to his belly button. Then, after the ear exam, Ethan asked me if there was fluid in his ear. It was pretty cute to hear that come from his mouth, but he was just repeating what I had discussed with him earlier as I didn't know if he was aware what 'fluid' actually was. I informed him he had an ear infection and indeed there was fluid in his ear and he needed to take some medicine to help his ear get better. He smiled and was satisfied with that.

After we left the office, we stopped to get some orange juice to reward his good behavior and we had a short (very short) lesson on fluid and liquid. Then, when we picked up his medicine from the pharmacy and I gave him his first dose, he asked me if his medicine was liquid. He is such a good little listener.

It is amazing how such a normal event as a doctors visit can be so interesting.

From drooling to doodling... our boy is growing up!

Ethan loves to doodle with markers and make silly pictures. He always says that he wants to show his friends his pictures, but when friends come over, we always forget that he made them something special. Maybe we will have to start addressing envelopes and mailing the cute designs, as I am sure his friends would enjoy getting some mail every now and then.

Today while doodling, he drew a ghost for Halloween. It was a very good ghost at that, and proudly he posed by his picture while I recorded his great creation on camera. Later we talked about other things that went along with Halloween, like black cats, and pumpkins and candy, and he drew his interpretation of those, but quickly lost interest.



After a few hours, he took a piece of scrap paper and put a bunch of dots all over it... he cut it in half and told Derrick that he wanted to give it to his friends so they could share it... one half was for Jennah, and the other was for Jack. I have no idea what it was, besides a paper with dots, but it is sweet that he is making things for his friends.