happy birthday steven!

today is ethan's buddy steven's first birthday! we're so blessed to live close to steven and his family... we go on walks and have dinner together often... and we also just show up at each other's houses when we're tired of our own! here's some pictures of ethan and steven from day one together, as well as some recent shots of steven... who, by the way, is walking alllll over the place! and apparently he is quite feared in the feline wrestling federation...

ethan- 1 week, steven- 2 months
"air guitar, check 1, check 2"

ethan- 4 mos, steven- 6 mos.

steven- 11 mos, ethan- 9 mos

baby's a growin'!

i went for my monthly dr's appt. today, and all is well. i'm 11 weeks along (as you can see from the ticker on my blog), but my dr. thought i was 12 weeks for some reason... so he tried to listen for the heartbeat using the little wand (not sure what it's called). (typically the heartbeat can be found this way starting at around 12 weeks)... when he couldn't find it, he decided to do a quick ultrasound since the equipment was right there. i'm not exactly crazy about having a ton of ultrasounds (this makes 3 so far this pregnancy when i'd had none at this point with ethan!), but he made it short and sweet, and of course, it was fun to see the baby again! this child has really grown, as you can see from the picture below. i posted the 7 weeks picture again so you can see how much growth has taken place in one short month! i could see the face and little arms moving.. so neat. ok, i'll shut up. here's the pictures.

baby at 11 weeks

baby at 7 weeks

oh, i almost forgot! the heartbeat was a strong 171 bpm... that is really high... so could this be a girl?? several people have already guessed that this will be a girl since i've been feeling more nauseous lately... i never felt bad at all with ethan. so we will see. i haven't been super sick, just sometimes a "can't get off the couch or open the fridge or i'll lose whatever i've eaten today" kind of sick. praise God for mothers and mother-in-laws that come to feed me and my child when i can't open the fridge and my husband's out of town!!! :) really, i am ok 90% of the time, so it could be much worse. at least it's all for a precious baby...

more nostalgia...

we had a girls' day out (plus ethan) today... mama d, mama hawkins, kristie, and i had lunch at one of our favorite bayside places... it was delicious! the last time i was there, i was in labor with ethan! i had just started having contractions 30 minutes apart when we were leaving to go eat dinner, and by time we were finished, the contractions were about 7 minutes apart! we thought ethan was coming that night (june 30), but as we all know, he decided to wait 33 more hours to arrive. i excitedly took my final pregnancy picture in front of the beautiful water that night! here is that painful looking picture, plus a couple from today. i was much more comfortable at lunch today than the last time i was there! i'm sure ethan would agree. :)

our gigglebox....

i just love how ethan laughs... i'm sure every mother feels the same way about her child's laugh... but i can't help laughing when i hear his full-belly giggle... last night, we went to nana & pappy's for dinner since mama hawkins is in town. we got back rather late, and ethan was exhausted. it was a bath night, though, so he stayed up even later and splashed in the tub. then TWO hours after his normal bedtime, i was about to lay him down, and brian did what daddies do best... getting their kids all wound up right before bedtime. :) enjoy the following video... sorry it's a little shaky. i couldn't keep from laughing.

ok...sometimes this video shows up, and sometimes it doesn't...just click the play button, and it should work...


for nostalgia's sake, here is one of ethan's first good hard laughs... i think i've watched this video a hundred times. gosh, he has gotten big! he was about 3 months old here...

snip, snip

well, we finally broke down and trimmed ethan's hair. half of me just wanted to leave it, but the other half of me was getting tired of tucking his hair behind his ears and fixing the front so it wouldn't hang in his face. auntie kristie does a great job trimming my hair, and she's always up for a new challenge, so she agreed to cut ethan's hair last night before "24" came on. he tolerated it all pretty well. here's some pictures of our little man and his little man hair cut.

look at that shabby hair...

a little worried about the first snip...

how many people does it take to cut a baby's hair?

trying to get the back even...

he's being such a good boy!

ok, he's had enough of this...

a few shots of the finished product...