Its begining to look a lot like...

Christmas!!!We've made a tradition of avoiding the crazy crowds on black Friday and instead staying home putting up our Christmas decorations together. It was the perfect day to stay in and snuggle, the weather was chilly out and dew clouded up our windows.
Ethan got an early gift on Thanksgiving from his family in Brazil: a really cool book/puzzle that pieces together to make a track so a tiger can spin around making a tour of the jungle animals.
After Daddy set it up for him, Ethan sat playing with it for most of the early afternoon. While Ethan kept busy playing, Mommy and Daddy drank homemade hot cocoa from our holiday mugs while watching some classic Christmas movies.
You may have noticed that we only decorated the top half of our tree. You see this adorable smiling face on our sweet baby boy? Yeah, well he's trouble and likes to tear down the ornaments and slam them on the floor until something breaks. While we were setting things up yesterday, we had to send an elf to the emergency ornament repair shop for some super glue to fix a broken leg and foot. So, we figured that it would be safest to keep the trimmings above Santa's belt until...well, it will probably be a few years until we get to decorate the whole tree again.

Curious critters

On our weekend trip to the zoo we saw a very curious otter swimming around in his tank.
He kept jumping in and out of the exhibit pool, swimming right past Ethan's big eyes.
Occasionally he would do some twists and turns to show off his sweet swimming skills.
Ethan pressed his face up against the glass to get a good view of the silly otter's moves.
I think Ethan would have loved to jump in there with him!
Bye, bye for now our little otter friend!
Over in the sand pit, Ethan was digging and found a turtle toy buried in all the sand, what a treasure to find!

Better late then never

So what if it was a few weeks past Halloween by the time Jorge got around to carving his pumpkin. It still came out creepy and cool at the same time. Can you tell what movie character it is?

Iron chef Ethan

Daddy's helping our little Iron Chef get ready for the kitchen challenge!
What's the secret ingredient today?!
All done cooking, time to play in the big box!
Pack me up and send me to Hollywood, i'm ready for the big screen!

Zoo trip

Finally the weather is cooling off around here and its now the perfect time to get out side and enjoy doing watever we can. We haven't been to the zoo in what seems like forever! Goodness for a while there this summer it seemed like we were going every other day.

So back again we went and everything seemed a little bit more exciting to Ethan, maybe its just because he hasn't seen it all in so long.

He was pointing at everything, singing and grunting as much as he could, taking in all the fun sights at the zoo. This is how Ethan signs flower, or tree, or plants, or grass...basically any kind of green growing plant he uses this sign for.

We made this trip with Ethan's best bud Owen who was equally as excited about seeing all the fish and animals. They loved peering into the big tank watching a resting sting ray lay right next to the glass.

Then it was over to the sand pit where they threw sand around, dug holes, burried treasures and fought over buckets...boys!

In the big play area they ran through the tunnels, collected big birds eggs, chased some girls and had a couple snacks.

Here is our little ham of the day, Mr. Owen cheesing it up for the camera, so cute!

Although the giraffs were already in their homes getting ready for the night, the monkeys were out swinging on their ropes giving the boys a little show. Usually these guys are either resting in the shade or hiding high up in the trees, so it was a nice treat to see them playing around together.

This was a great zoo trip and you can bet that we'll be making a lot more of these now that the weather is so nice out!

ok

So, this is a little better then the last postition we caught him sleeping in, but its still a funny one. I guess he was dreaming that the Phillies won the world series again!

Sure

Sure, this could be a comfortable position to sleep in...
...i'm not sure if i could ever do it, but it worked for Ethan the other night. So silly!

Cloudy morning

Rain, rain. Go away.

Come again another day!

Stormy

Yesterday afternoon seemed so sunny and warm, like the perfect day to hit the beach. But once we started driving over the causeway all we saw were dark clouds, choppy water and rain falling in the distance...yikes!
I love the look of concern on Ethan's face here. Its like he's looking at the stormy ocean water thinking "Uh, Mom. I think we should come back another day."

Reverse

Usually, Ethan wants nothing to do with his crib. Once he's awake he wants to be taken out of his crib as soon as possible.
But on this day i found Ethan trying to climb back into his crib. Trying very, very hard.
Change of heart? Nope, he just wanted to rescue his turtle from the bars of the cage like crib. Such a thoughtful little guy huh?!