Urban or Rural

Oregon has a unique law called the Urban growth boundary. This means that developments and new houses have to be within this boundary. This law protects farms. As a result you can be in the country and still be only minutes from downtown. Today Ethan and I went berry picking on a farm, and we were only about 20 minutes from downtown. Across the street (I'm no pic) is city like housing where the houses are all crammed in next to each other, due to the Urban growth boundary.

We had a lot of fun picking berries. Ethan was a good sport, most of the time He really just wanted to throw sticks and ride his scooter. But he hung in there. Enjoy the picks!

4th of July

I know I am a little late, but better late than never. We had a wonderful 4th of July. The weather was great, Ethan was in a great mood all day and things just seemed to go smoothly. We started in the morning with a big pancake breakfast, and then we headed of to Lake Oswego for the Children's parade. As you can see in the pictures Ethan loved riding his scooter in it. He rode almost the entire route. After lunch and naps we had a BBQ and then headed to Tigard High for fireworks. We were right across the street from where they lit them. Ethan wasn't scared at all like I thought he would be. He was fascinated and cuddled with his teddy bear the whole time. The next morning Ethan woke up and asked for more fireworks in his room. He begged daddy to turn the lights off and light them off in his bedroom.

ABC and 123

Ethan has recently learned how to say all of his ABC's he still gets pretty camera shy and so we had to help him, but normally he just walks around the house singing the song.




Ethan also counts to 20, but its been hard to catch him on video since he really wants to see what I am doing with the camera. He focuses for a few seconds and then he runs over to me because he wants to see the video, but he only gets part way done counting. So here is what we have.

MUSIC TIME

Ethan had his first music lesson today with Grandma Gray. As many of you know he has always loved the piano, singing and listening to music. This made Ethan's days to have Grandma play with him! As you watch the videos you can tell that he is trying hard to play the right notes. Thanks Grandma!

Veggies

When Ethan started eating solids I only fed him veggies hoping that he would always like to eat them. Unfortunately that has not been the case. The only veggies he will consistently eat are fresh tomatoes or these spinach raviolis. So i have been trying to find ways to sneak healthy veggies in his food. He loves pancakes and waffles so today I baked a sweet potatoe and mashed it up into the pancake batter. I tasted one and you can't tell a difference except its a little thick so I think I'll put a little less whole wheat flour in next time. Ethan loved these and they are becoming a regular in our home!

P.S. don't mind the messiness of the cooking job, I can't cook very good. who cares anyways, it all just gets eaten anyways!

Birthday boy

This weekend we celebrated Ethan's second Birthday. His birthday was actually last Monday, but due to the fact that I got my wisdom teeth out last week we decided to postpone the celebration. It worked out that Valentine's Day became the day. We went to a Burger King in the area that has a really big (and clean!) play area. Ethan enjoyed hanging out with friends and family, and eating tons of ice-cream cake. His cake as you will see is Thomas the train cake, It is really blue, and made a mess going in.... and coming out in case you were wondering.

WOW! Its been a while

I can't believe how long its been since I last posted on my blog. So much has happened! Christmas was exciting with the snow and with a trip to the ER Christmas Eve for Ethan. He woke up with croup from his nap and our doctor insisted we go. It took us 45 min to and hour to get there with the snow and ice. Of course we all survived and now we are all healthy.
Last week I got my wisdom teeth removed and have been doing A LOT of laying around. I watched tons of movies and slept.
This week we are trying to get back to a "normal" life. And things can only go uphill from here.
Here are a couple of pictures from our latest outing at a park.