A year of Ethan

Ethan turned one year old back in January. We had a fun party for him and really for the twins. It was at Central play place at Westerville Christian church which was excellent. It had a huge indoor play structure where all the kids could run wild and play. The rental price was excellent for two hours and I brought in catering by Yabos Tacos. Since the play place was within 3 miles, delivery was free and Yabos set everything up for me. Awesome food, highly recommended.

Ethan is the best, most well-behaved baby I have ever had raised and encountered. He just smiles playfully at anybody and very rarely gets upset. When upset, he will immediately shove his left thumb into his mouth and immediately start self soothing. Around a year old, he happily sleep trained himself and stays in his room throughout the night. The twins love him and he spends his days crawling after them. I can't say enough about what a great addition he's been to our family.

Newborn

Happy 1st Birthday!

And again!!

We love you Ethan!

Will's birthday

 

Kids from a recent trip to the zoo. Visiting the Heart of Africa.

Four months flew by in the blink of an eye. Four months. That is how old Ethan is. We fed him his first taste of real food-a concoction of broccoli and mommy milk. I held the spoon up to his month and he nudged it with his lips, unsure of what to do. After I urged a couple of spoonfuls of broccoli mush into his mouth, he started trying to lap it up. I'm not sure he knows how to eat it but his attempts improved in just one sitting.

Today is Will's birthday so dinner was his favorite pepperoni pizza from Pizza Cabin. Carter shockingly ate bites of pepperoni pizza until he decided that the pepperoni was spicy after 4-5 bites. "Spicy" is what the kids would say to show their dislike of something. "Spicy" and "hot". I've caught them using it to describe cold salad. Ainsley is our little wanna-be vegetarian with her predilection towards greens. She has even eaten lettuce from my homemade salads before and loves green beans. Unfortunately, that love was not extended to meat and she refused to eat the pepperoni pizza. After several tries and the "no playground" threats - Really? The threats of grounding have already started? - Ainsley peered at the underside of the pizza with interest. So I folded the pizza in half hiding the cheese and pepperoni and she took the smallest bites possible from the crust. I would normally say that it is great that she loves her vegetables but both our kids on on the smaller side of the growth charts which causes Will to lose sleep at night.

After dinner, we headed off to get Rita's Italian ice in downtown Powell, a quaint little family friendly area. The plan was to let the kids try and pick out flavors that they like and then take it to the playground at the park down the road. Will and I used to make this same trip for ice cream and tennis except we used to visit Jeni's ice cream first. Jeni's ice cream is a Columbus-based gourmet ice cream shop made with fresh, local ingredients. Milk from the Snowville creamery is the main one that comes to mind. Their flavors are all delicious whether it is their signature Salty Caramel or more exotic Goat Cheese with Sour Cherries (my favorite!). I use the word gourmet to describe her ice cream as a pint will cost $10. 3 small scoops will cost $5 at the store though you might be able to stretch that by trying as many flavors as your taste buds can handle-totally encouraged in the store. Unfortunately, Jeni's ran into a hiccup in their operations where listeria was found in some of the flavors of their ice cream. Upon this discovery, Jeni's closed all their shops and recalled all of their ice cream to find the cause of listeria which was eventually traced to one ice cream spout dispenser. They have announced that they will not continue operations until this situation has been completely remedied.

With Jeni's being closed, we all went to Rita's and Will took the kids through the line to try various flavors of Italian ice. Both tried only a couple and Carter picked the Swedish fish while Ainsley got juicy pear. Two large Swedish fish gelatis and two small ices in hand, we all went to the playground at the park. Rather than parking near the tennis courts we used to play, we parked near the playground. The size of the playground structure was perfect for the twins age. It wasn't too big where I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving them to roam free on. I sat on a bench with dessert and Ethan and laughed as the twins struggled with whether to play on the playground or to eat their ice cream. Carter solved this dilemma by holding onto his cup on the playground and refusing to let anyone near it including Will. Will had finished his own Swedish fish gelati and was trying to eat Carter's. I gave mine to him as I normally do after eating 1/4 of it but that didn't even last very long in his hands. Hilarious. It is his birthday today after all.

Time is going by way too fast...

The kids are growing so fast and with Ethan being born, I feel like I missed a milestone in their development. One of the examples that Will gave was before we went to the hospital, the kids used to say "bao bao" which was Chinese for hold (as in pick me up). After we came back, they would say "bao bao me" They are learning to put words together and have become much more articulate in expressing what they want.

Will had sinus surgery around Christmas time and then we were all plagued with colds. He couldn't pick up the twins for a couple of weeks and would explain to them that he had surgery and now had "owie." When he would cough a lot, Ainsley would peer at him really concerned and ask "Are you ok?" She understands when someone is hurt or in pain and shows genuine care and concern. The other night Will was tucking them in when she asked for his hand which indicated that she wanted to pray. After Will mentioned all the people we are thankful for as well as those we want to pray for, Ainsley chimes in with "mommy owie." It melted my heart to hear that.

At the same time, baby girl is ambitious and dominant. She'll fight for her toys and and would not hesitate to throw in a bite to win. What a conundrum wrapped into a beautiful little package. Carter usually loses these fights. At one point, he started biting her back on the face and we would discipline him same as we discipline her. Carter stopped the biting but I'm not sure if Ainsley has.

I tucked both of them in last night for the first time since Ethan was born. Usually their bedtime occurs right when Ethan needs to eat or when he cries because he senses that I have left the room. Since my milk supply was very low from having a stomach bug that rendered it nearly impossible to keep anything down, I had Will feed him a bottle of formula.

It felt like such a rare treat to tuck the kids in-for them and myself. I laid down beside Carter and Ainsley, took both their hands and said a little prayer. Next would be music time and both kids said"Baa baa" which meant they wanted Baa baa black sheep. That is followed by twinkle twinkle little star, ABCs, itsy bitsy spider and Baby, it's cold outside. Last night, Carter's favorite was itsy, bitsy spider and he made me sing it 20x. My hands softly tickled their arms as if they were spiders walking on them. The kids cracked up and cried for more when the song was over. Ainsley fell asleep shortly but Carter remained awake for a good half and hour longer so I traced big circle, little circle on his back and sang to him until he fell asleep.

Setting up the Christmas tree

Our Christmas tree ended up much better in the house than we thought. It was beautiful and allotted much more room for all the ornaments we have accumulated over the years. The kids really enjoyed bringing us the ornaments to be put up on the tree. This took several days.

Preliminary tree decorating

I'm going to help daddy with these lights.

Hanging up the footprint ornament we made for his first Christmas.

Taking a break from hanging ornaments.

They always make me laugh.

\

I know there are more ornaments in there.

Let's put all of these up!

Handling one of the bigger ornaments.

The kids favorite ornaments turned out to be the larger Hallmark ones that light up and play sound. Particularly there are a few Charlie Brown ones that they would love to press the button on to see the display. Another one of Ainsley's favorite one is from Dr. Seuss where the who daughter catches the grinch stealing the Christmas tree. When pressed, she says "Why? Santi Claus. Why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree. Why?"

I question the decision behind introducing her to the word "Why?"

Searching for the perfect Christmas tree

The past few years I've been a grinch around Christmas. I don't usually get into the holiday spirit and putting up the Christmas tree has always been a hassle to me. It didn't help that Will hated the artificial pre-lit Christmas tree I have as he considers getting all the lights to work rocket science.

What a difference kids make. This year will be the first year that Carter and Ainsley actually kind of understand Christmas. The weekend after Thanksgiving, I persuaded Will to go on a family outing to get a Christmas tree. Not only did Will want a real live Christmas tree but he wanted the twins to watch him cut down our tree. Oh boy. 

After reading several opinions and reviews from people on FB, we opted to go to Cackler Farms up in Delaware. It wasn't too far and it sounded like they had the pine trees Will wanted which was the blue spruce.

Kids chasing after daddy who is searching for the perfect tree.

Ainsley: Let it go, let it go.....

They liked the one animal that was there.

The kids like this tree.

But I like this tree too. How many of my trees are you going to reject?

Picture in front of the tree the family decided on.

After having to follow Will from one end of the farm to the other, I decided that this pregnant lady was finished with the risk of tripping over a tree trunk. There was a play area for the kids and I took them there which was much more enjoyable than searching for the perfect tree. I think the kids would agree.

Ainsley decided she wanted to take home the snowman rather than a tree.

I'm climbing to the North Pole.

Got there!

My turn!

This is kind of a big slide!

Made it to the top!

What do you mean I have to come back down?

I'm just going to chill here for a while....

Again! Again!

Meanwhile Will decides to look around some more to make sure that he did not miss out on the perfect tree even though we all found one we agreed on. Then he came back to get the sled and the saw to cut down the tree. What felt like an eternity later, he drags the thing back up and goes to get help securing it to the car. I felt bad that I didn't take the kids to go watch him cut the tree down but he really didn't ask me to when he got the sled. I think he realized that the kids were having way more fun in the play area.

There's more than just a slide here!

This play area feels a lot like what we played with when we got pumpkins.

It's cool, I'm down with that.

Funny conversation overheard at the tree farm:

Customer -Will my tree be ok if it gets rained on on the drive home?

Tree guy: I think it's been rained on before....