Visit to friends in beautiful Avon, CO

My friend Vivian and I took our boys to visit our dear friend Becky in Avon, CO who just had a baby girl. It was a long drive, but the boys handled it really well. Becky also has a son 9 months older than Ethan. The boys has so much fun together. They played together on climbing pads and the giggling and squealing made the drive well worth it.

Before and After

Our house was in serious need of an exterior paint job and after considering different historic bungalow color schemes we decided to go bold. We really like it. The pictures do no justice. What looks like white trim in the bright sun is really a darker brownish-cream color. The door is going to be stripped back to the wood and we're going to replace our little white gate with a taller one made from salvaged pieces of our old wood fence. We've been passively looking at houses because we feel we've outgrown this one, but we love this house and can't find anything we think is worth leaving it for. For now we're enjoying the new colors and raspberry patch that is now well established and huge. Maybe we'll just add on.

Ethans first camping experience

We took Ethan camping in Bryce Canyon and he loved it. Our first evening we went on the navajo loop trail and he said "wow. pretty" at the first view (without any prompting). He squealed and jumped around in the tent until he passed out. Sorry we didn't stop by your house Uncle Frank. We left from Draper early.

How could you not love this?

Out on a HIke

Ethan insisted on wearing these sunglasses.

Update

An Update

So much has happened. Here are a few stories:

Ethan has started singing songs he knows when he's walking around or in the stroller. It's so cute. His grandma got him a sesame street DVD of silly songs. His favorite is James Taylor singing Jelly Man Kelley with his guitar to a group of kids. Ethan recently sat down with his ukalele and started to sing along. At the end when the kids laughed, so did he.

I was suprised when I took Ethan to Citrus and Sage cafe to look at the out-of-print books upstairs. He wanted to go into the management office and said "baby chicks." Nancy, the owner had let us in sometime during the end of March, beginning of April, to see some baby chicks that had just hatched. I could believe he remembered that!

Ethan loves to count to ten. He also started using phrases like "c'mon mom!" and "mom.....watch me" when he's about to do something tricky. He often refers to himself as "Edan." He'll say things like "Edan go to Sams house, huh." He often ends his sentances with a drawn out "huh," funny.

And, for the big news, Ethan peed in the toilet twice yesterday. He's been asking to sit on the toilet for a while, and to put his baby on the toilet. But, yesterday he actually went! I'm not getting my hopes up, and will let him take his time. But it would be nice if he potty trained as he is now refusing to wear his cloth diapers.