Ethan's 5th Birthday

Helping to make the cake



YUM--Licking the bowl!!



Open mouth, insert spatula



Covered in chocolate



Cupcakes at school



Birthday noodles at the Chinese restaurant



Home-made Kung-Fu panda cake...Wow, I'm good



Blowing out 5 candles



Eating cake with friends

Another First

...so I get to celebrate another first today....

Projectile vomiting in the backseat of the car! The story goes like this:

We get off the freeway on our way home from school. I hear, "mommy, my tummy hurts." I asked him if he needed to go potty; he said he did and I told him we were almost home and he could go as soon as we get there...silently hoping there would not be an "accident" in the car. A few minutes later he starts crying. Not typical behavior for my son, so I knew he really was not ok. I try to reassure him while not plowing into other cars on the street. ....then I hear it...it could only be the sound of...spewing. Dread and panic set in. I look in the rear view mirror only to see his hand over his mouth and the chunks flying between his fingers. I can laugh now..it was quite a sight. I begin to rack my brain: what do I do? Do I have anything to clean it up with? Do I pull over? Do I call Gary? All while reasurring my crying, barfing son who has puked all over himself, his carseat, some story books and a stuffed panda. I decide to pull over and search my trunk for anything useful and find an old carwashing shammy and nasty dish towel. Fortunately, Gary was already home and I called to have him on standby with towels as soon as I pulled up.

Anyway, after the clean up crew (i.e. myself) got it all clean, Ethan seems to be just fine. No fever, no flu like symptoms. Now we have to decide whether or not to send him to school tomorrow.....

Merry Christmas

Ethan & Maranda playing wii boxing



Rubber gloves and pj's--what a fashion statement




Ethan loves his dumptruck--notice who is driving!


It's a few days past Christmas. I haven't written for the simple fact that I felt like I should have something profound or witty to say and I just couldn't come up with he right words to sum it all up. It was Ethan's first Christmas. He loved it, as any 4 year old would. He opened his presents and has been playindg non-stop ever since. With every present he opened, he wanted to play with it right away. We had to tell him to set it aside to open another present. It was a little confusing for him; but still fun. At the moment, I'm being served plastic hamburgers, hot dogs and soda! We are still awaiting for the arrival of the replacement parts for the play kitchen we got him that arrived in a few too many pieces.

Our first trip to the ER

We survived our first trip to the Emergency room after a plunge head-first into the corner of the coffee table. They put some of that dermabond glue on it and we were good to go. The next day at school, Ethan fell at school and bumped it again, and then scratched it in the night and scratched the glue off of it. Now he has a nasty scab on his head which looks much worse than the picture you see above.

The pajama pictures are from the Chinese Adoption Playgroup get-together we attended which was a pajama party at a friend's house. As you can see, Ethan is the only boy amongst all of the little girls!

Untitled Entry

So the title of this entry is "untitled". I had too many witty titles and just couldn't choose.

I could have named it "Ethan's School picture", which you can see from the above picture. What's really amazing is looking at the referral photo to the left of this blog and then looking at his school picture. Wow-what a different little boy!

I could have named it "Happy 6 month anniversary" since 6 months ago today our adoption was official in China. I can't believe how fast that went. 6 months doesn't sound that long in the scheme of things. It really feels like he's been a part of our family forever. I can't even remember what my life was like before Ethan!

I could have named this entry "Why?" I think we hit a language milestone in the car today. I told Ethan after school I have a meeting with someone's mommy (parent/teacher conferences). He asked me, "Why?" *His first why question*!!! On the way home, I told him I had to go somewhere after dinner for a little while and I got another "why?" He asked if he could come with me and I had to tell him no. Another "why?" I wonder how long this will last??!!!

What I really was going to name this entry was "My 4 year old eats Kalamata Olives, does yours?" I was making a veggie pizza and cutting up random veggies that I had on hand. While at the cutting board, Ethan came up and started asking, "I wanna taste it." So he nibbled on broccali, tomatos, and then moved on to the olives I was cutting up. He loved the olives and when it came time for him to help me put the toppings on the pizza, he was eating more than was getting on the pizza. He then moved on to plucking the toppings back off of the pizza until he got caught! He wouldn't leave the olives alone!

All in all things are going great. At the end of every day, I'm exhausted, amazed, and in still awe that I have the most incredible little boy asleep in the next room

A verse to share

Saw this on someone else's blog today. It's one of my favorites.

"Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east, and gather you from the west." Isaiah 43:5

100 good wish quilt

Quite a long time ago, when we still thought we were going to be adopting a baby girl, we started collecting squares of fabric for a 100 good wish quilt for our baby. We received squares from family, friends, and other adoptive families around the world. Some of our pieces are from France, Spain, England and Australia! Once we found out we were having a boy, the style of squares changed from baby girl fabric to little boy fabric. You will notice we have a little of everything in Ethan's wish quilt. We decided to include all of the pieces as they represent the journey of Ethan into our family.

I think we well surpased the goal of 100 squares--I'll have to count them, but I think we ended at about 112. Look closely...if you contributed a square to the quilt, it's in there somewhere!