Happy Birthday, Boys!!

The boys had their birthdays this month, and boy did we celebrate! Chase turned 1 on the 17th and Ethan turned 3 on the 20th. I decided to let Ethan have a friends birthday/playdate in the afternoon, then we did a family birthday that night.

Most of my friends that have kids his age have girls, so he was a little outnumbered gender-wise. But he loved it. We had a Cars themed party, because Ethan is obsessed with Lightning McQueen. We played some games-- a bean bag toss (the kids mostly ran up to it to throw the bags in the holes) and a prize walk with music, and then we made candy cars out of gum packs and life savers, and decorated cupcakes. It was pretty fun, the kids seem to enjoy themselves! These were the only pictures I took of that morning, then my camera died.

That evening we had the family over for dinner and cake and ice cream. I made lasagna and Eric made the cake-- isn't it awesome??! I was so worried he wasn't going to have time to do it, he insisted on it being a 3D Lightening McQueen cake instead of a decorated sheet cake. We had baked the cakes the night before, but he didn't start decorating it until 2 pm and the party was at 6:30! But he did such an awesome job, Ethan loved it! Mom (Rindlisbacher) made a bear cake for Chase, and he kept growling at it. He loves bears. My dad took the pictures because I couldn't find my camera charger, so these are all from him.

(You can click on the collages to enlarge them)

The Cakes

The Guests and the Presents

These were some other pictures I got from my Dad's camera. I just downloaded Picasa and I love the collages you can make with it! I'm not very good at it yet, so I'm sure they'll improve as I practice more.
My babies are getting so big!! (At his 1 year appt Chase weighed in at 22.6 lbs, and Ethan weighs 27. Yea.) Chase is now in an upright, forward facing car seat and loves it. And he's starting to take some steps on his own, so it won't be long now until he'll be walking and unstoppable!

Breakthrough!

Ethan went potty three times this morning! It wasn't fun and he sat and held it for a long while but between morning and nap time at 2 he went three times and no accidents in his pull-ups! We are making progress!
Small, but it's progress!!!

Morning Entertainment

I love waking up and finding a moose outside, because I know it'll keep the boys entertained for a long while. I told Chase it was a moose so he kept pointing and saying "moo!" Ethan kept it up with "One, two, three, four, five foots, lots and lots of foots! Chase, do you see him?!" It's pretty fun to watch, this is one reason we are going to miss Alaska.


On the other hand, you may have noticed the extra 6 inches of snow we got dumped on over the last 2 days. Where did spring go? This is one reason I am NOT going to miss Alaska :). Not that Des Moines holds a much better promise, weather-wise.

Progress Report

So this is Ethan's progress as of Sunday night.

(Nothing fancy, but functional.)

Don't be fooled, he gets a sticker every time he sits on the potty, not every time he goes in the potty. Then every time he has sat 3 times he gets to watch a 20 minute episode of Dora the Explorer. It is seriously the best motivation you could give this kid, he loves that show.
I'd say this weekend was successful in 2 ways: 1- he went #2 in the potty twice and 2- he doesn't run the other way every time we mention going to sit on the potty. He happily goes and sits down everytime now, because he knows he'll get a sticker, but he just doesn't know what to do once he's there. We sit for 10-15 minutes, read stories, and talk about going potty, but I just don't think he gets it because he never went. The two times he went #2 we noticed he was about to go and ran him in there.
Over the weekend I kept him in diapers, so his misses weren't really accidents, but today we went and got him some "big boy underpants" and Resolve. Now we're in it for real. We had 2 accidents this afternoon-- again, he doesn't tell us when he has to go, just after the fact when he's wet. Help! Anyone have any suggestions?


As a side note, Chase was a pretty good sport this weekend. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff when he gets to ride Ethan's bike, and every time I get out the camera now he gets this cheesy grin on his face. He has added a few words to his vocabulary: Buh bye while waving, scoot (scoo), car, and he can sign all done while saying "da da" in the same tone I say "all done." He'll be 1 year old on Saturday!!

Wish me luck

We started potty training today. I just woke up this morning and decided to do it. No more putting it off, no more excuses, we're doing it. Ethan helped me make a sticker chart, got lots of sippys with water and juice, gathered fruit snacks and jelly beans in a treat bin, and explained the process to my little man. No turning back now, this is it. Wish me luck.

Monster Man

Chase has done some serious growing and expanding this month. And by expanding I mean the area he is able to reach and get into. I constantly refer to him as a monster man, he climbs up on and gets into everything!! The coffee table, the fireplace, Ethan's bed, you name it he's there. He's just figuring out how to climb DOWN off things safely, not head first. Here are a few examples caught on film:

Trying to copy Ethan

Not so happy when the bike struck back

Mohawk!

This is how he stood for a good 10 minutes, making me very nervous. I went and stood behind him after I took the picture :)

On the other hand, he is such a smart boy and figures things out so quickly. He will imitate almost anything we do, and he's just started picking up on some sign language, like "more". I know you're not going to believe me, I wouldn't believe me either, but yes, my 11 month old talks. He says Mama and Dada, No with a perfect circle to his lips at the "O", Coo coo when he sees the Cuckoo clock, and will repeat you clearly when you say Matt. He loves to follow Ethan around and amuses himself with the funniest things. Today he found a plastic egg and kept hiding it under the flap at the bottom of the couch, then reaching back in to find it. He probably repeated that 12 times before he stopped. Gotta love boys!

Easter Eggs

Concentrating. Coloring eggs is serious business.

When I went to go get the crayons, Ethan decided more eggs needed to go into the coloring cups. Two of them went into the yellow together.

Sticker eggs

Egghead

We went to both sets of Grandparents houses for egg hunts and had a lot of fun, but forgot to take pictures.
Hope you all had a Happy Easter!