He’s so old!

Ethan turned 4 on January 7th! I can’t believe he is already 4 years old! He has been counting down the days to his birthday since Christmas got over so he was pretty excited when it was finally here. The first thing he did when he woke up was to run in my room and ask if he could open his presents now. Mind you this was around 7:15 and he usually doesn’t get up until 8:30 or 9:00 so I was a little surprised. I told him he could open one gift so he immediately ran out, got the one from Great Grandma Green and Aunt Carol, and jumped up on my bed to open it.  When I told him I wanted to take his picture he told me he wasn’t going to smile he just wanted to make a pout-pout fish face.

What a goof! The present was a game which he insisted on playing as soon as he got it opened. He won of course, sometimes he gets so lucky on games like these.

I had to convince him to go to preschool by telling him the presents would still be there when he got home. I took some treats to preschool and they sang happy birthday to him so he thought that was pretty cool. When he got home he just couldn’t wait to open more presents so I told him he could open one when Jake got home for lunch.

  

It was a package of funky hot wheels cars. He opened them right away and drove them all over the living room. Luckily they kept him occupied enough that he didn’t ask to open any more presents until dinner time. We had dinner (he requested burgers, fried potatoes, and green beans) and then got down to opening presents.

 

He had a lovely red mustache all night. We got him a few little things that we knew he would like. He loves the play dough and also the bowling set that Jake picked out.

We saved this one for second to last. It was a present from Grandpa and Grandma Lester.

He was having a face off with the dinosaur. Then he decided it would be good for scaring bad things out of his room so ran in and put it by his bed.

His last present was one he has been looking forward to. He’s been using a small bike that we got from our neighbor but the wheels kept going flat and it was a little small so we decided rather than buying two new bike tires we would just get him a new bike. Since my parents didn’t know what to get him for his birthday they went in on the bike with us. This is the bike he wanted.

 

It is a Hot Wheels bike with motorcycle revving sounds on the handlebar. We didn’t want to pay to ship it to our house and we didn’t have room the last time we were in Cedar so we planned on going to Cedar the next day to pick it up. We were going to leave Olivia home so he could have a day with us by himself. We had planned on picking up his bike, taking him out to eat, and going to a movie (because he has never seen a movie in a theater). Unfortunately around 11:00 that night after he had been asleep for about an hour he woke up and threw up. He proceeded to throw up about every half hour for the next three hours. Finally he got to sleep only waking up  a couple times to throw up again. Needless to say we didn’t go to Cedar that weekend. We did manage to make it over there this last weekend and he was so excited. We went to walmart first thing and picked up his bike. Then we went to McDonald’s (his favorite place to eat) and to the movie. We saw Princess and the Frog. Very cute movie but the earliest showing they had was 4:30 and Ethan fell asleep about an hour into the show. Also, the seats were really tall and it wasn’t really stadium seating so even with the boosters they had he had a hard time seeing. We will try another movie sometime when he isn’t already tired and in a theater where he can actually see.

 

He was so excited when we got home  that he really wanted to go for a walk but it was about seven o’clock and freezing cold outside so we promised him we would the next day and then he rode his bike around the house. (For anyone who hasn’t been to our house there is a open area that runs through our entry way into our computer room through the kitchen and past the living room that is perfect for doing laps/races/chasing). He probably would have done laps all night but we finally made him put his bike outside and go to bed. I think it was probably his favorite birthday present.

Thanks to everyone for the presents and birthday wishes. He told me he had an “awesome radical” birthday and can’t wait for Olivia’s birthday!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

While we were up in Ephraim for Christmas we had to spend some time playing in the snow. They had so much snow up there! Ethan couldn’t believe it, and he was so excited! We spent time sledding down the driveway, riding behind the 4 wheeler, and just playing the in the snow.

All dressed to go, laying on the floor, waiting on everybody else, laughing at aunt Angela

 

Some videos of our snow fun. Ethan had so much fun trying to run around in the snow that was up past his knees, and Olivia enjoyed just being carried around and laying in the snow.

 

(Thanks mom for taking this picture)

Christmas morning

Ethan came running in to our room on Christmas morning with his hands full of toys from his stocking. Apparently he woke up and went straight out to the living room to get started and we hadn’t even heard him. He told us that Santa had come and left a bunch of presents by our Christmas tree and we needed to come out and see them.  Luckily Olivia had woken up about a half hour before so she had already eaten and was ready to play.  Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning:

 

Olivia had gotten pretty decent at sitting up by herself but she kept getting so excited (mostly about the wrapping paper as you can see above) that she kept tipping over so I just decided it was easier to leave her laying down.

 

Ethan got a GeoTrax train station and loves it. It is nice because it is so kid-friendly. He can take the track apart, reshape it, and put it back together all by himself and the train will start going even if it is not all the way on the tracks.

Here is Olivia with all her presents from Christmas morning and some of the ones from Delta

Ethan of course refused to pose for any pictures with his presents but I thought I would throw this one on here because I think it is funny. Jake says he looks like a stoned rock star.

Christmas in Delta

Getting ready to head out on Friday morning:

Making gingerbread houses

The only thing I did on the gingerbread house was to help him spread out some icing so that he could stick the candy on. It was kind of hard for me to stand by and let him do whatever he wanted because I kept wanting to jump in and resituate the candy so that it matched and looked symmetrical but I held back and just had to keep telling myself that it was his and he could do it how he wants.

All the grandkids in their matching pj’s

Somewhere there are more pictures from that weekend but not on my camera since my batteries were dead so this is all you get.  We had a great time relaxing, spending time with the family and the kids loved playing with their cousins (okay so Olivia didn’t play much but she still had fun laughing and growling at everyone).

Thanksgiving in Ephraim

Okay, so it’s a little late. And I don’t actually have any pictures of our actual Thanksgiving dinner but these pictures are all from when we were in Ephraim during our Thanksgiving vacation so I am counting it.

When we got there on Wednesday afternoon we went bowling with almost the whole family.

 Jake’s ever so graceful bowling stance

 It was Ethan’s first time bowling and he had so much fun that he keeps asking when we are going to go again

On Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) it has become a tradition to go pick out a Christmas tree. We have been getting Christmas trees from the same people for as long as I can remember and now Angela and Cortney get their tree from the same place so we all headed down after breakfast to find just the right tree.

  Jake looking thrilled to be there, while the kids wander around the farm.

 Mom and dad discussing which tree to get. (All right, mom was probably discussing the pros and cons of the tree and dad was probably just nodding in agreement.)

 Olivia was just happy to be outside

 I think this could be a winner

 The Hirschi’s winning tree.

  No, he isn’t doing what you think he’s doing (or is he?)