As you probably know, I am very active in a couple of online communities.  Some of the women on one of my boards decided to have a playdate in PA, a fairly easy drive from me, so Ethan and I hopped in the car and drove to Nina’s house and met up with several wonderful women from my PAL/SM board and all of their babies!  What a treat to get to meet, in person, women who I have been “talking” to online for over two years!  We put the babies in their Halloween costumes, it was extraordinarily cute.

Cute babies in costume are not always happy

This is such a FUN age.  He is such a little comedian.  He is GO GO GO all the time.  Running around the house.  Going from toy to toy to toy.  He has his own complete little language – we understand some of what he is saying, but he is always talking about SOMETHING.  He loves to be tickled.  He loves to snuggle.  He loves to kiss.  He loves to be chased.  He pretty much loves any sort of interaction and will do anything to get it.  Even stick his entire hand in his mouth until he gags violently because he knows it brings me running.  Such the prankster.  Here are just a few pics of Ethan playing around over the past few weeks.

Colleen, Vanessa and I celebrating Vanessa's birthday

People are always asking me, “how do you like New Jersey?”  Often while wrinkling up their nose because, of course, it is NEW JERSEY.  But I have to answer honestly, I like it a lot.  I know there are areas of NJ that aren’t so nice, but I think you could say that of all the states.  But, the best part of our new home has been the friends that I’ve made here.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have so many friends so quickly, and have made such close friends.  Yet, I have.  Its wonderful to be able to wake up each day, check my calendar and go to any number of playdates hosted by my mom’s group, or call up a friend on the phone and say, “what’s your plan today” and then head over to their house, or they bring their child to mine, or we meet up someplace where the kids can run around.  People also ask me how I like being a stay at home mom, and I can honestly say that I LOVE it – but I attribute that 100% to my friends and my mom’s group.  Because I have things to do EVERY DAY.  We don’t sit around the house, we are always going places and hanging out with people.  And its wonderful.  So today I wanted to say thank you to my wonderful friends here – all of you, you know who you are.

Happy Halloween!!

Today was such a fun day.  This morning we had a party with all the parents and kids from my mom’s group – 40 adults and around 20 kids…..yes, it was beautiful chaos.   The kids were so adorable.  Ethan sacked out about an hour into the party but enjoyed running (yes RUNNING!) when he woke up.  We went and trick or treated around our neighborhood and I’m pretty sure he stole the show with his precious frog costume.

This time last year we were moving into our new home and Ethan was just 3 months old.  He is such a different person just one year later.

This time of year is actually interesting to reflect on…..you see, on October 30 James and I were married…5 years ago.  FIVE years ago!?!?!  How did that happen??  Tonight we were talking and so much has happened in those five years, and yet it has sort of been a breeze.  I feel so lucky that the early part of our marriage has gone so smoothly.

But there have been some sad times.  This isn’t exactly a secret, but its not something I have necessarily widely told people before, but 2 years ago, on our anniversary, we also had a very early miscarriage.  And so October 30 turns out to be a very important day in our lives for many ways: the day we were married, the day we moved to NJ and our son turned 3 months, 15 months, and…yes…the day we officially lost our first pregnancy.  But – we have Ethan, and I can’t imagine our life without him.  And so I look back on all the amazing things that have occurred in the five years since I married the love of my life, and I can’t imagine things turning out any differently.  So…Happy Halloween and Happy Anniversary my sweetheart.  I love you James.

As I said before, I was looking forward to teaching Ethan sign language from the beginning.  Now that he has finally caught on it is like a snowball rolling down a hill.  He is learning so fast and its so fun to communicate with him in this way.

I posted a video below of a few of his signs, but I captured MANY more on camera during the past week, so I have extended the video from before.  Enjoy!

I finally got my video camera back up and running today and uploaded all the videos from it going back through Labor Day.  I need to make some edits, but I’ll be doing some updates soon!

Ethan at 14 months

Well I have clearly been neglecting the “month” pictures, but that doesn’t mean that his monthly birthdays have been passing by without notice, by me anyway.  Ethan celebrated 14 months in Atlanta, right after his Atlanta birthday party and Christening (posts to come about those.)  This month has been very exciting, the biggest achievement was, of course, learning to walk!  This has truly transformed my little baby into a little boy!  The other really exciting thing has been his sign language, which continues to explode more and more every day.  Here are all of his 14 month pictures.

Pete Peterson

I am involved with a very special organization called Camp Horizon.  Our mission is to restore dignity and hope to children who have been abused and neglected – empowering them to make good decisions and lead healthy, productive lives. Richard “Pete” Peterson,one of our founders, has been chosen as one of five finalists in CITGO’s Fueling Good promotion.  Fondly known as “Uncle Pete,” he has been tirelessly volunteering his time to help children for more than 25 years. His story is featured on the CITGO website along with other community heroes.  The winner will be chosen by popular vote so please cast a ballot for “Uncle Pete” and Camp Horizon.  It’s easy to vote.  Just follow these two easy steps. Vote for him every day for the next 11 days. The voting period ends October 15, 2009. Each person is allowed one vote per day Help Us Get More Votes By Asking Your Friends and Family To Vote

Click here to vote For Camp Horizon and “Uncle Pete”

You can help Pete get more votes by asking your friends and family to vote.  You can vote every day for the next 11 days – voting is closed on October 15. Please spread the word to family and friends.  Please consider sending them this note and requesting their help in this effort.  If “Uncle Pete’s” story is chosen, he will win the $2,500 grand prize for Camp Horizon.  This will go a long way in fueling the buses and transportation to get the children to camp and the various outings throughout the year.

Some of you might remember a video I posted about 4 months ago of Ethan signing “fan.”  I was so excited because we started signing with him when he was about 4 months old, and at 10 months he finally signed something.  Turns out that was the one and only sign he did, and he really only did it that weekend.  We kind of got discouraged and stopped signing with him for awhile.  But over the past month he has started to imitate us a lot.  So I started signing with him again….what a difference 4 months makes.  All of a sudden I can teach him a sign in like 5 minutes!!!  He picks them up fast.  He doesn’t always do the correctly, or at the right time, but he is getting better and better.  Today I caught several of his signs on camera, and of course I made a video to show off.  So here is Ethan doing about 5 of his approximately 20 word sign language vocabulary.  To compare, he currently SAYS 4 words: Mama, dada, cat and cracker.  His sign language vocabulary currently includes: dog, cat, airplane, more, milk, ball, bath, change, shampoo, tired, eat, light, fan, daddy, truck, bird, fish, hat, eat, please and a few more that I can’t think of this minute.

I realize that somehow I forgot to tell Ethan’s online fan club that Ethan is really, truly, OFFICIALLY a walker.  When I posted that walking video it was when he was finally balancing and getting the hang of it, but he wasn’t walking as his primary mode of transportation.  Well, he is now and has been doing it for about 2 weeks.  It is SO cute to watch him walking around.  He looks so tiny, its weird, it seems to defy the laws of gravity for something that little to be able to walk, but, he does.  I enjoy taking him to random places and plopping him down and letting him roam around.  Inevitably he beelines for something with wheels that he shouldn’t push but its fun anyway.  Here are a few pics of him walking around the Home Depot nursery, and a short unedited video clip of him standing up on his own, collecting acorns and walking around.  My big boy!!

See what I mean about things with wheels?