Ethan's Flowers

Ethan wasn't feeling very well today.  It started yesterday afternoon.  He had a lot of sun and ice cream, so it might have been that, or it might have been something he ate earlier in the day or a virus of some kind.  He was very cranky and said his stomach hurt and he had a low fever.  He woke up around 12:30 with more complaints of stomach ache and still fever.  It took about an hour to get him back to bed.  He was up at normal time, but seemed pretty tired and I wanted to keep him pretty still, so after trying to think of something other than a mall or store to trap him in on such a beautiful day, I remembered the walking trail in a neighboring town.  I knew if he saw a playground he'd want to go on it, but you can get to this one without going by a playground.  So we went for a nice walk, though there was a lot of pushing his stroller uphill.  He asked me to take these pictures of the flowers and the bees.  He said they were getting nectar for their honey. He woke up halfway through his nap with more stomach issues, but we seemed to get them settled down and he was in a better mood by bedtime- but of course he didn't want to go to bed and I think only feel asleep a little bit ago.

BBQ

We had friends over Sun. for a bbq.  It was nice and hot like the first weekend of summer should be.  We had some good food and fun with our friends.  You can see that Ethan enjoyed seeing Teddy again.

Corn

Ever since corn showed up in the store, Ethan's been asking for it.  Remarkably it wasn't awful, though it was clearly not picked any time near when we bought it.  Saturday was our work day, getting everything cleaned up and ready for our bbq on Sunday.  Ethan helped a lot.  He made the bbq baked beans, he helped James put all the chairs and toys out, and he helped me clean the refrigerator.

Workin' at the Car Wash

James got out of work a little early on Friday so he and Ethan did some chores.  Which made me extra chores (of the laundry kind!) Next time I think swim trunks and beach shoes.

Cousins!

I'm a little behind.  Trying to catch up- this is last Thursday when Gavin and Auntie Mandy played with Ethan while I went to the dentist.  Yep, I let these two on my good couch- no shoes of course :)

Thomas!

James and I managed to surprise Ethan this morning. We got up bright and early and headed to Essex where Thomas the Tank Engine was making a special appearance. Somehow when we got there Ethan didn't see Thomas, and they said to be there an hour early, though they didn't open the gates until half hour before our ticket time, so we had to wait in line for close to half an hour.  He knew Thomas was on a map they gave us, but when he saw Thomas in life-size, wow- he was impressed.

 Ethan and James waiting in line for pictures with Thomas the Tank Engine

Picture time with Thomas

Riding the train with Thomas pulling

There were lots of things to do after the train ride. The first thing we did was to go see the fire fighters. Ethan got to try on a helmet and pretend to drive the truck.

Then we met Sir Topham Hat. After that, we saw a model train inside, got a few coloring pages, and headed back out to the clown making balloons.

Ethan managed to get two balloons- he asked for a caterpillar, which I expected to be a straight balloon twisted once for a head- it ended up being a very complex process of twisting and shoving the twisted piece back inside the balloon, then poking a hole in the end so the rest of it shrunk in place. When the clown finished, he told Ethan that it was so small he needed a butterfly too. I wondered if that meant every kid after him had to get two- and there were a lot, we held up the line.

There were also a few rides to try out.  First up was the firetrucks.

After that, the car that looked like a firetruck.  I'd say Ethan had a pretty full weekend.  We also managed some time to play outside and watch a movie (Lady and the Tramp this week). He told me he's going to tell all his friends about Thomas.

Cupcake Class

This morning Ethan and I went to a local cake supply store for a cupcake decorating class.  It was fun, and really simple.  I didn't even know the place was there until Thursday, but we're glad we found it.  Ethan had a great time, he decorated five cupcakes in under half an hour.  They all look great and were super simple.  Unfortunately for us they were yellow cake, which no one in our house likes very much.  Ethan at the owl anyway, he ate the top half first then left some of the cake. But now we have some ideas for easy decorating, and apparently they do this once a month- sometimes they use cookies.  We may go back, schedule permitting. As we were leaving, I thought he might want his apron to keep his shirt clean.  He did, but had to have the chef hat too.  We were the only people so prepared.

Sing and Dance

Ethan performed this lovely number this morning.  If you don't recognize it, he's singing "I've Been Everywhere" but he's reworked the Johnny Cash version into his own artistic expression, complete with stainless steel drums.

Blue Man

This afternoon was rainy.  We stayed in and did a craft project.  Two in fact.  First we made a paper plate turtle.  Then we made a picture with an umbrella, and we were supposed to put raindrops on with fingerprints.  Ethan decided he wanted to do handprints.  They quickly spiraled into armprints. 

Rain

Catching up

Here are a few leftover from Mother's Day- Ethan and I smelling the lilacs and Ethan playing with his favorite toy, a stick.

These are from last Thursday- both Tues. and Thurs. were really nice and we were able to spend time outside planting our garden and raised beds.  You can see Ethan decided his pool would make a great lounge chair and he repurposed it- I hope he didn't crack it.

 These are from yesterday at Granny and Gramps's house.  Ethan and Jonathan were playing superman. 

Then they played soccer.

Ethan and Uncle Tom were lazy in the recliner waiting for dinner to be ready.

Even though it was wet and kinda gross Ethan and Jonathan played outside for a while.  They played soccer, blew bubbles, and played baseball.  I think Jonathan got soaked more than Ethan though.

 Ethan's favorite activity is pulling Uncle Tom's beard.

Ethan and Amber had some fun too.

Tom knew I was taking this for Mother so he made a special effort to look good for the picture.

But here's the one she really wanted :)

Happy Mother's Day

 This morning Ethan woke me up and we read a story while James made breakfast.  When James asked Ethan what he wanted to make for me, he said "How about cereal? How about Chex?" but James went out on a limb and made blueberry pancakes.  Ethan wanted cereal, so he ate corn flakes.  He had Chex yesterday.  He gave me a present he made at school, a beautifully painted jewelry box. He also got me a new robe and James got me- are you ready?  A push wheel lawn mower!!! Which I just used- it's awesome, no noise or air pollution, no fossil fuel required- and after using it I don't feel the need to get on the treadmill today.  But I digress.. After breakfast we headed off to the Beardsley Zoo. 

 Ethan tried all of the various ways to measure himself, and to be another animal.  The river otters were very playful and fun today, not at all like the last time we had been there- that was a really cold day.  Today was beautiful. 

 Ethan and I poked our heads up the hole like the prairie dog and posed as peacocks.

 At one point, Ethan told James his feet were killing him.  He kept asking to be carried.  One of us kept doing it. Ethan got a few rides- he also brought his tiger in to show it to the big tiger. He also roared at it.

After the zoo we went out for barbeque for lunch at a shack by the river in Seymour.  It was lovely.  The food was good, the place was really quiet and you can see what a great view we had of the river.  I already said what I did when we got home, now for Ethan to wake up I think we'll go get our vegetable plants and some more dirt and work on the garden. I'm so ready for the four months of green.

Beautiful Day

Ethan and I started off this morning by going to the Kmart where he had a monster sized fit- so we did not go to the library, which had been the plan.  I told him he could have a toy which he kept changing his mind about, so when I refused to push my 200lb cart all the way back to that aisle for the tenth time, he lost it.  I've never seen him be so embarrassing.  I don't know why, maybe he thought I would do it- but we went there to get dirt, and I literally had 200 lbs in my cart between him and the dirt.  Anyway, we did manage to get to the grocery store where our friend Jo gave Ethan a Buzz Lightyear- he was so excited.  He's still carrying it around.  After that we came home and played in the dirt until lunchtime.  After nap, we went to the park and had a great time.  It was really the first time I wasn't worried about him falling off something or hurting himself, he even pumped on the swings.  Then we went to the library because I thought our movies were due, I had forgotten that we went Thurs. last week.  Anyway it was nice and empty because everyone was outside.  We came home, did a craft, and started making dinner.  Ethan just helped me pick out the pictures to post on his blog, including the first one- a comparison between him at the same park in 2009 and now.

Ice Cream and Robots

This morning we went to the Elephant's Trunk.  It was insanely busy so we did not stay very long, just long enough for James and Ethan to share a lemon ice.  We came home to play outside and dig in the garden, then we had a pizza picnic.  After naptime we went for ice cream.  The line at Rich's was beyond ridiculous (ie you couldn't even get in the driveway to park) so we went down the road a bit. Ethan enjoyed his anyway, despite James eating the last bite of his ice cream cone.  Then we headed to the job lot to buy some dirt for the raised bed we bought yesterday and we came home with a second raised bed.  Ethan thought the box was a good way to turn into robots.  We dumped in the dirt (not enough) and spent some time spreading it out.  Ethan actually leveled it off.  Then it was time to grill some dinner (James finally evicted the mouse who made the grill home during the winter).