An Update

Thanks for all your concern about our babysitter quitting. Luckily we have found another babysitter and she is great! As of right now she might just be around until September when I have to rethink my plan for when I work because she has night classes that start at 4 (which she didn't mention until after she was hired, I didn't say she was perfect but she is great). Ethan seems to really like her and Taylor is actually taking a bottle from her and drinking a whopping 10 oz. of milk while I'm gone all day. This is a record since she was drinking 3 oz at most from the old babysitter. So that is one stressor down for the moment. I do have to complain about one thing with the new babysitter. You know how I had ranted in my last post about the horrible "goodwill" pants that the old babysitter had put on Taylor. Well I come home after the first day of leaving the kids with the new babysitter only to find that Taylor was once again wearing the "goodwill" pants. Either babysitters, by profession, have no fashion sense or Abe is trying to tease me by changing the children before I get home. I will also mention that Ethan had on a "belly shirt" (a shirt that was obviously too small and showed his little belly). My kids might be scarred for life from these outfits.

I just love these two pictures of Ethan. He was watching the Sword and the Stone the other day and he decided he wanted to joust. So in a moment of creativity, a fleeting moment, I made him a little costume. He was just so cute as he rode around on his "horse" with his stick. In the top picture Abe had Ethan make a mean face. He is just so cute.

Ethan-isms

Ethan has been driving me crazy lately with the things he says and does. He tries to act so grown up. Abe finds them quite amusing so I thought I would share some of them with you. I took the picture above this morning. He sat at Abe's computer and told me that he had some work to do. I was talking to him about what he was doing and he picks up the voice recorder, puts it to his ear and says "Mom can you be quiet, this is an important call." I know where he has heard that before.

The other day he came out of his room before quiet time (in lieu of nap time) was over and I asked him who told him he could come out of his room. With all seriousness he said "Monkey (his stuffed animal) opened his eyes and said it was time to wake up." Today during another non-nap time he came downstairs with a blanket on his head and I said "Ethan why did you come out of your room?" He replied "It's not Ethan, its just a ghost."

The other day I asked him if he had seen the sling I have for Taylor. He wasn't sure what I was talking about so I clarified "the brown polka dot sling." He was quick to point out that it had "white spots". And the sad part is he is usually right but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

I had cleaned up the other day and I threw away some things that Ethan had brought home from nursery since he hadn't looked at it since Sunday. I made the mistake of throwing them in the bathroom trashcan so later when Ethan went into the bathroom he said "WHAT HAPPENED!" I think I just played innocent and acted like I had no idea what he was talking about. Then in a totally patronizing voice he said "Mom, Jesus doesn't go in the trashcan."

I don't think I have mentioned that Ethan told us recently that he has a brother that hangs out at Food Lion (which is kind of across the street from our house). His name is Nathan. When I asked him if his brother lived at Food Lion and he looked at me like I was completely crazy. He said "No one LIVES at Food Lion." So I'm the crazy one cause its completely rational just to hang out there but not to live there.

So I have finally found my one crafty passion. This has taken many years and much money wasted on things that I did once and put down. As Taylor has lost a lot of her hair it is hard to put ponies and barettes in her hair. Not to mention the fact that she likes to stroke her hair while she eats and will pull out anything that is in her hair (and any hair that might be attached to it). Because of her rather large head I couldn't find many headbands that will fit her head so I decided to make my own. So I spent a while (I won't confess how long it actually took) figuring out how to make them adjustable and how to make it so I can just switch out the ribbon so it takes me about two minutes and maybe 50 cents to make a new one. It is pretty sad that I'm so excited about my accomplishment but like I said, I don't do crafty very often. So here is Taylor modeling my first creation. She is pretty good about wearing them though the other day in the car I heard Ethan say from the back seat, "Mom, Taylor is being a pirate" as the headband had covered her eyes. I felt kind of bad so I was talking to her about how I was sorry and I would fix it when we stopped. Ethan looked at her and said "Don't worry, now the sun can't get in your eyes." Such an optimist.

And the rest are just some random photos that I forgot to post. We once again abandoned Abe and went to my parents house on one of the weekends that he had classes on Saturday and Sunday. It is so nice to have them close enough that we can pop in for the weekend.

We had a fun 4th of July and Ethan loved his "flag shirt". Any time I put it on him now he points out that it isn't the 4th of July any more.

Ethan's enthusiam went down from here once he realized that we weren't going to let him shoot the fireworks off.

So this picture is from one day when the babysitter did Taylor's hair. I don't know why she always makes it stick straight up but it looks so funny. I can't remember if I ranted about this or not but forgive me if I have. So I have this pile of clothes that people have given me that I decided I didn't like enough to keep and I have been meaning to take it to goodwill or something. For several days straight I would come home to find that the babysitter had dressed her completely in goodwill clothes (by the way this is not one of her goodwill outfits). I personally think Taylor has lots of adorable outfits so I can't figure out why in the world she would pick these to dress her in. It annoyed me to no end. Not to mention that I'm so annoyed with this same babysitter because she wrote me an email last night saying that she is quitting with hardly any notice because she found a better paying job. So annoying!

Putting Off Work

So since we are always willing to take blog requests from someone as cute as Ethan's cousin Audrey (and do to the fact that I don't feel like doing work) here is a video of Ethan. I asked him what he wanted to do for his video and he said he would sing "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home." Maybe it was the fact that we were sitting on the porch waiting for Abe to come home. I had a cuter version where he sang all the words but I always forget the fact that you can't turn the camera on its side when you take a video. You would think I would learn.

The weekend before last Ethan, Taylor and I went to Greensboro, NC to visit some of my friends and we took Ethan to the Children's Museum. He had a great time at the museum and I had fun visiting my wonderful friends. I'm so bad about forgetting to take pictures, especially while trying to keep Taylor happy. But here are a few.

We started a garden this summer and Ethan has been a big help. He would water it all day long for you if you let him. And he is quite willing to pick anything, even if it doesn't need picking. This is a picture with our weird looking zucchini. He was so excited that he got to pick it.

Abe finally finished his second year of medical school and we are so excited for him. So that means the classroom portion of medical school is over and he is spending the summer studying for boards. Unfortunately he only had one day off between the end of class and the beginning of board reviews so we enjoyed our day to the fullest. We spent the evening celebrating with some of Abe's classmates and their families at a bbq. Of course I didn't take hardly any pictures and after the fact I realized that I hadn't taken a single picture of our family other than one of Taylor. Taylor was too tired to enjoy the party so she whined most of the time.

Here are a few more pictures of Taylor. I just love naked baby pictures. Taylor has figured out that sucking on her toes is a lot more fun than her fingers.

Just Some Pics

Since we don't have anything exciting to blog about here are just some pictures of my babies. I think Taylor looks so cute in brown. She is growing out of her clothes way too fast. Her 6-9 month clothes are no longer big on her.

This is what Taylor would look like if she was bald. A friend of mine gave me this headband but Taylor doesn't like wearing it too much. I think without her hair she looks a lot like her cousin Julia.

Her hair is getting so much thinner than it was back then. I can't wait for it to start growing back in again.
And some pictures of Ethan. This is from the park on Saturday. It was nice to get to spend a little time with daddy at the park.

The other day Ethan grabbed his backpack and started for the door. He asked for the keys and said that he was going to school (obviously he forgot that you don't get to drive to school until high school). As he walked down the front walk he said, "Don't worry mom. I don't have a test today, just some meetings." It's funny what he picks up and how much he wants to be like Abe. When he "came home" from school I asked how his day was and he said, "We had a test on skeletons."


Ethan loves hats. He wants to wear them all the time. This picture below is him with my winter hat on. I don't have one of him in Taylor's pink hat but he has been known to wear that one too.

It was probably 80 degrees outside and Ethan said he had to wear his winter hat to play outside.

I love this picture of Ethan and his "thinking" face. He got this from Peter Pan. He is so expressive with his face some days. It is hard not to smile when he says he is thinking about something and he makes this face.

Fun in the Sun

So Ethan, Taylor and I took a trip with my mom to Myrtle Beach last weekend and we had such a fun time. Ethan has been wanting to see the beach for months and he loved it! He would have played in the sand all day but he wanted nothing to do with the water. It was too cool to get in so it was nice not having to worry about him wanting to get in. The weather could have been better so we didn't spend too much time at the beach but we had a good time. We sure missed dad though, especially in the middle of the night when Taylor didn't want to go back to sleep :)

We spent some time in Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach and it was a fun time. It's an old rice plantation which was owned by some very rich people that turned it into beautiful gardens with statues. When I was young we lived in Myrtle Beach and I have tons of memories of time spent there so it was fun to show Ethan around. He loved it too.

Ethan got into the statues so I told him to stand on a rock and be a statue. This is what he came up with. Now everywhere we go he wants to find a place to be a statue. The other day he thought standing on boxes of diapers at Walmart was a good place to strike a pose.

Ethan also thought that each of the stands describing the statues were music stands so he would stop and conduct at each of them. Of course we were all instructed to sing while he waved his arms.

I was amazed to see this alligator and turtle hanging out together. You might not be able to tell but these little guys were not in a cage, they were just wild. So needless to say we took the picture and kept walking before mama alligator came looking for her baby.

And the rest of these are just some pictures of my angels. Would all the moms agree that this is too high to push a kid in a swing? But Ethan absolutely loves it!

The other day I walked into the living room and saw that Ethan had given Taylor a pretend piece of chicken and a breadstick because she was "hungry". She was so excited.

And here is a little video of Taylor. She doesn't do anything all that exciting but she is quite a talker these days. It won't be too long before she will be giving Ethan a run for his money.

Gone Fishin'

For the last couple of weeks Ethan has talked about wanting to go fishing. As with all the other ideas that Ethan gets in his head I don't know where the idea came from but finally today Abe got to take him fishing while Taylor and I went to a baby shower. He had such a great time playing and casting his fishing pole. He is such a cutie.

Abe said he kept chasing this poor goose and telling it to get in the water. Just like all the other people that Ethan bosses around, the goose didn't obey either.

The weather has been so nice lately that we have had lots of time outside. Ethan has recently decided that its fun to pee outside. It all started when we were on a walk and he had to go to the bathroom. It was several miles back to the start of the trail so Abe told him he could pee on a tree. Ethan thought that was the most fun ever. He wanted to "water" all the trees along the trail after that. Since then we have found him several times pulling down his pants and peeing against the same tree in the yard. This next picture was the other day on the front porch. Abe and I looked out and saw that he had taken off his clothes and crawled into the pot of water he had been playing in. Oh what he neighbors must think!

Taylor is getting so big. She will be 3 months next week and she is so much fun. She still has her little scowl sometimes but its easy to get a smile out of her too. She has been such a good, easy baby. We have been very lucky.

Today we were driving home and Abe mentioned that when we got home Ethan was going to have to get a bath. Ethan LOVES bath time so it was kind of strange that he started whining really loud and saying "Nooooo". After a minute he stopped suddenly and completely calmly said "Wait, Dad did you say bath? Oh I thought you said nap. Sorry dad." The whole way home he kept saying "Sorry dad." I love it when he apologizes for things. Unfortunately it is usually for things that he hasn't done wrong. For example if one of us kicks the leg of a chair then he will say "sorry mom, sorry mom". He can be a real sweetie. We just love that little boy.