Pumpkin Patch

Today we had a lovely outing, with Kirsten, to a local pumpkin patch. I believe that the last time I visited a pumpkin patch was on a Butler field trip or preschool field trip, is that right mom?

Yeah, not our best shot. A nice gentleman took this photo of us...without the best results. But, we captured the moment:).

We also ventured into the corn maze, a new experience. While we didn't cheat and cut through the corn rows, we did end up exiting the maze at the entrance. So we made our way around the maze...talking all the way...I'm not ready to admit that our chatting had an effect on our navigation;).

Ethan had a wonderful time sleeping during most of our visit. He woke up just as we were finalizing our pumpkin choices and he LOVED the pumpkins!

At first we were trying to capture him and he kept being distracted by all the bright orange "drums" around him:). So, we decided he needed a pumpkin in front of him to play with if we wanted to get a photo of him! All in all it was an easy, inexpensive outing, and one that will continue to get more fun through the years as Ethan, and subsequent children, grow.

Clearing out the digital camera: Videos

This video was probably from 2 months ago shortly after Lady had her last haircut. We had been having trouble with Lady scavaging Ethan's food while he was eating it in his highchair. We had ended up escalating the volume of our voices in exacerbation. Not productive. And definitely not the sort of example we want to set. So we went back to a training technique we learned in her puppy obedience classes many moons ago-the spray bottle.




Shortly after Ethan gained proficiency at hands and knees crawling, he started to discover his room. In anticipation of the play opportunities that he would have with bins of toys within his reach, I reorganized his room a bit for our crawling man. So, I heard some noise in Ethan's room and came in to discover he had taken his block bin out and was tasting his blocks one at a time:).




I wish I had captured Ethan's first go round of this exercise. He was absolutely SLAMMING the highchair. He had a delightful time all along, as you can see in the video.

Ethan is 10 months old!

Ethan was 10 months old as of Saturday. He is still in love with crawling as his mode of transportation and is not super interested in practicing walking. Instead, he is very interested in crawling, sitting, and dancing. Then, sitting and figuring out how to manipulate objects. He loves to try anything that makes lots of noises and involves banging. He tries to make drums out of lots of items. He also spends a lot of time dancing on his knees and singing to himself. It's neat to see him develop his own play, and of course, play with Lady. Ethan is finally more interested in assisted standing. He really enjoyed standing early on and then, I suppose because he is so proficient and speedy at crawling, he become downright opposed.

Ethan is saying his own version of: yes, that, Lady, Daddy, Dada, and Mama. Some words are clearer than others but, it is great that he is getting to a stage where I tell him the name of an item/person and he attempts to emulate the sounds. Ethan is also waving with abandon and more clearly communicating when he is ready to get out his highchair.

I cannot believe how close he is to being 1 year old?! It was so delightful to see his cousin Ella 2 weeks ago, and marvel at what we have in store in a mere 5 months.