Father's Day at Enchanted Forrest

For Father's Day, Allan decided he wanted to take a trip down to Salem to visit Enchanted Forrest. We have been planning to take Ethan here for quite some time, and decided we were just going to force ourselves to pack up the family, and head down south.
At first, Ethan wasn't too thrilled with being there. He's finally hit that age, where he understands fear, and associates anything dark as being "scary". So as we walked through the first part, of the houses based on nursery rhymes, he was not his occasional happy self. But the, we made it to the old woman who lives in a shoe. And for those of you who haven't been there, they have a great big slide built in to the shoe, that goes down a steep hill, and the kids can go down it with their siblings, friends, or parents. At first, Ethan wasn't all that thrilled with the idea of going down, and made sure that his mom or dad went down with him, and that holding hands was mandatory the whole way down. But once he realized he liked it, he wouldn't give us the satisfaction of his enjoyment, and would agree to keep going down, but in his normal temperamental way. So we went down it three or four times before moving on.

Then, we came to the next part of the area, where there are some fun shooting games, boat driving games, and another slide that the kids can go down on their own. It took a lot of fighting to get him to go down, but eventually he got hooked. He does love a good slide. But we shied away from this one quickly, when we realized that it leads to an unsupervised area, where I didn't feel comfortable having Ethan go to on his own.

As we kept playing, and walking, we made it to the "big" rides, which Allan was excited to be able to take Ethan on. And of course, Ethan loved them. Though he wasn't big enough for the log ride yet. They also had an area that had rides built specifically for younger kids, that was safe, and Ethan was in heaven. He went on the Frog Hopper, which at first scared him because he didn't know what to expect, but after he got the hang of it, we had a hard time pulling him away from it. They also had a mini Farris wheel that he enjoyed riding, a train (which everyone knows how much Ethan loves trains!) and bumper boats, which were also a favorite of his. Thanks to Allan's friend Brian, Ethan was given a ride bracelet, that allowed him to go on as many rides as he wanted, as much as he wanted. So all in all, he had a great time celebrating Father's Day. And it brought joy to Allan, getting to see him have some fun.

We look forward to heading up to Silverwood again in the next month. Last year was great, but this year will prove to be much more fun for Ethan!

Me and My Sister!

Ethan and Maddie got their pictures taken together for the first time since Maddie was born. Here is Ethan, 3 years old, and Madelyn, 6 months old. It was a fun photo shoot with my two kiddos!

My favorite part was that Ethan's shirt said "Big Brother's Rock" on it, while Maddie's shirt says "Little Sister" on it. Isn't it fun, the silly things you can make your kids do for their pictures!

I'm Three!!!

We got Ethan's 3 Year old photos taken... along with his sister's 6 month photos... they are great! We love them... Thought I'd share a few!

It's amazing to me how fast he has grown up, and how much he has changed, even in a month or so. He practically speaks in full and complete sentences, he can count up to 13, and can count backwards from 10-1. He knows his alphabet, and aside from his love for Mickey Mouse, is obsessed with The Imagination Movers. We're hoping they come to town over the next year so we can take him to their live concert.

He know has a quad, a bicycle with training wheels, and instead of riding in the wagon, he pulls his sister in it. It's fun to watch him growing up, and seeing how much he is soaking in everyday. I love my big three year old boy!

Hey! My Great Great Great Grandpa planted those!

On a family trip to the Saturday Farmer's Market in Hillsboro, Allan decided to take the kids over to show them part of where their family heritage lies in Hillsboro.

The four giant Sequoia's that stand next to the Hillsboro courthouse, were brought here and planted by Ethan's great-great-great Grandpa John Ramsey Porter. So we decided to get a picture of the family heritage while we were out and about.

I'M THREE!

We knew this day was coming, and I tell you, at this stage, it gets more and more difficult every year. Our wonderful little Ethan has turned 3! Though it was an awesome day, it also brought along a lot of sad "don't you remember when he was just born" moments. We started out the day with yummy pancakes (his top choice) for breakfast with grandma Monica. Macie joined us for the day, and we set off on a few small field trips. Dad took the day off work, so it was a great day. First, we embarked to Fred Meyer where we got Ethan his brand new Cars helmet, and knee pads. Then it was off to Target to buy his two new DVDs, The Imagination Movers, and Mickey Mouse Club House. (by the way, he hasn't stopped watching them since we bought them!)

Then it was off to the party! We decided to throw him a VERY kid based party, at a local Pizza and Play place called, "Out of this world Pizza" in Hillsboro. Ethan was in heaving, running and jumping around, playing on all kinds of play structures, going down big slides, and having a ball!

But his birthday didn't end with just his party. Nope, he had many joyous events for the entire weekend. Grandpa Doug was excited to bring over his present from him and grandma Monica. Ethan's very first quad. Ethan was excited to get it, and pretty much did very well with driving it (if he could just learn that pesky steering habit!). Then we had dinner with Uncle Dain and Auntie Angie, and opened a few more presents. One being his awesome, very first video game system from them, the V-Tech! The next day he used his gift card and extra money from his great grandparents to buy a Wall E game for it!

Then, Saturday night, we had dinner and cake with grandpa Joe, grandma Sue, aunt Katie, and uncles John and Mikey. Ethan also got to spend a lot of time with his cousin Lilly, who will be turning 3 next month! All in all, I'd say this was one of his greatest birthdays to date! Though, we don't have that many to go off of yet.

Playing Outside!

Well, we finally were able to get outside and clean up the backyard as we had been wanting to do for a while. It was nice to spend the afternoon as a family outdoors, pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, and pushing the kids on the swings. Maddie even had a great time! Here are some pictures of Ethan finally getting to get back in to the great outdoors that is his backyard!



Allan had put a pirate ship wheel on Ethan's play structure toward the end of summer last year. Well this year, Ethan's imagination has taken off through the roof, and now, his favorite thing to do is pretend that his fort is a pirate ship, and he will shout out directions of what he is going to do, and for people to get out of his way. It's really quite fun to get to watch him, and see how he processes his thoughts more clearly these days.





He's still a huge fan of the slide. Only now, he feels that it's much more appropriate to advise me, that he "needs to go slow mama" before he can go down. The taller play structure has a much more steep slide on it, that we didn't really calculate very well when we built it, but Ethan was determined that this year he was going to go down it, and when he sets his mind to something, he accomplishes it, no problems. Well, the first time he went down it, he wasn't quite sure how to place his feet when coming off, and took a nice little tumble, more of a tuck and roll approach, and then quickly got back up on his feet. Well, it didn't scare him. He just got right back up, and climbed right back to the top to go down a few more times. I love that he's fearless.



Another new thing for this summer, is climbing. He's never been one for climbing really, and so when we put the small rock wall on there, we figured it would be around 4 or 5 that he would take interest in climbing up it. He always seemed to prefer ladders more. Well, I was shocked to see him just climbing away at the wall. I had to get some pictures of him, because he climbed it as if he had been climbing this wall his whole life. I was very impressed. It's nice to see that my little boy, actually does the things that little boys do! Though thankfully he still has no interest in bugs, and I am a-okay with that! But We had a lot of fun watching him find his footings, and make his way to the top. He's one very strong and very active boy!





And of course he still takes it to the hoop like Joel Pryzbilla!!! This is the one thing I have loved him getting. Thankfully a friend had given it to us, because we hadn't been able to find one we could afford. But he is more than okay with getting his basketball's out and practicing for when he joins the blazers for his career!




Then there are just the moments that are just to precious for words! I am so thankful for finding this car on craigslist, because it has been a favorite in the backyard. I hope to find another one for a good price that I can have for his friends during daycare time!

Easter Eggs!

Well... this isn't Ethan's first Easter, but we still managed to find something he hadn't quite done for Easter yet. Coloring Eggs and Easter Egg hunting!!! On Thursday before Easter, we invited over some good friends, bought lots of eggs, hard boiled them, made the dye, and put on our best "egg dying" clothes, and got started. Ethan was very excited, though not so much for coloring the eggs, but trying to see just how many he could crack by throwing the eggs as hard as he could in to the bottom of the dye containers. Thankfully, we caught on quick, and got the kids to stop before we lost too many eggs to cracking! But it was so much fun to watch him start this new process. Though I will say, there were a few attempts on the little boys parts of attempting to drink the dye, instead of using it to color eggs.

He probably favored the orange color most, and many of his eggs turned out to be this particular color. Ethan was just fascinated with the eggs floating around in these multi-colored bowls, and did not hesitate to get his hands dirty playing around. We spent about an hour working on the eggs with our friends, laughing, telling stories, and giving ideas for different things we could try in the future. It was nice to finally start to do this tradition with my own kids. And I'm excited for when Maddie will be old enough to help as well.
There he goes again, just getting another egg ready to face it's Easter task of taking on color!



This was Ethan's 1st Easter Egg ever colored, and I caught it on camera! What a proud moment! We had a lot of fun




For Easter, we spent the day between both families, as we so often do! We started off the day with Brunch at Grandma and Grandpa Porter's house, and Ethan was able to spend some good quality time with cousin Lilly. We attempted an Easter Egg hunt (another first for Ethan). It was actually quite funny to watch Ethan, because he would come across eggs while running around and goofing off, and just throw them over his shoulder as if they were one big obstacle to overcome! But eventually he saw how excited Lilly would get over finding eggs, and started to jump on board. After that, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Christopherson's for a wonderful Easter Dinner of ham and scalloped potatoes. It was a great holiday all in all!