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.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.
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!
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!
Well, it's been kind of slow with the kiddos the past few months, but our little Ethan sure is quite the wonderful little kid. His speech is improving tremendously, and he's learning how to be a helpful big brother! We are "slowly" attempting potty training, and he's slowly but surely getting to a point where he's starting to let us work with him, and having lots of successes. One step at a time! As much as we love watching him grow up, it's still hard to want him to stay young forever!
He's developed such amazing phrases, and really doesn't have too many impediments as far as letters. The other day we were talking about cartoons, and I had asked him, "Ethan, do you like Handy Manny?" to which he looked at me as serious as can be and said, "no, not really"... Can an almost 3 year old boy really understand that much? It appears to be so, but threw me through a loop to hear him say something so definitive.
He is also counting to 10, and can sing his ABC's, and can tell you what most shapes are just by looking at them. But what makes me the most amazed, is his ability to memorize songs. He learned "Twinkle, Twinkle" on his own, and can sing just about any theme song to the play house line up from 8:30 am to 10... but killer is that I don't let him watch that much TV. He loves to sing the Little Einstein's theme song. Of course he will always love The Mickey Mouse Club House theme song. And he loves and sings various songs from The Imagination Movers. I love how much he loves music. He's also a big fan of They Might Be Giants, here come the 123s... We're going to try to take him to more concerts as they come through town... but NO WIGGLES! haha
Ethan loves to spend time talking about video games with dad, and can tell you the name of the games Allan is playing as he plays them. Though I probably shouldn't be to encouraging of him sitting watching some of the games his dad plays, I'm just impressed with how much knowledge he obtains on a day to day basis.
Other than that, we're just up to taking lots of trips to the zoo, and will soon start cleaning up the backyard now that the sun is starting to show. Hopefully we'll have some more stories to share soon!
Well it is official, Ethan's second most favorite place in the world (of course right after Disneyland) is the zoo. You'll notice on here, that most of our posts take place after his trips to the zoo, to which he has been 4 times in the past two months (Thank goodness for that Zoo pass, best investment we ever made!)
He is in love with looking at all the animals, but mostly, he's in love with running around all over the place, while we yell for him to slow down and stay with us. But here's some pictures of our most recent trip.
Look how big he's gotten! What a fun family day!
We finally got a picture of him with the goat in the background.
He's almost as tall as that bear! I can't believe how tall he's gotten.
Running back and forth across the bridge. This kid as so much energy. I have no idea where he gets it from.
Having some fun in the log tunnel. What a great kid!
that is one big fish!
Ethan loves John Deere Tractors. Something he comes by honestly since his grandpa Doug also likes them too! The zoo was SO great because there was next to no one there, so all the pictures we're always wanting to take, but can't because the areas are so crowded, were finally accessible to us! It was awesome! A good day for the Porter Family!
Ethan has definitely taken quite the shine to his baby sister! He's enjoyed being as much of a help as he can possibly be, in addition to learning how to play games with her, and help her when she's upset. He likes to help dad make her bottles, he is our official "bottle shaker". And he loves playing "Peek a Boo" with her on a nightly basis. When she cries, he will, as quietly as he can say it of course, state, "It's okay baby Maddie, don't cry" - - which usually makes her cry even more because Ethan can't speak in a calming tone! But he has good intentions!
He also is quite fond of giving her kisses and hugs. He's just turned out to be an amazingly great big brother to his sister Maddie!
Big brother love after bath time! They look similar, but very different! But they are both SO cute and precious to me! Don't ask me what happened to the second picture. But it's so cute, I have to share it!
One afternoon, while Ethan was sporting his "I'm the Big Brother" t-shirt, he had told me he wanted to hold baby Maddie. So he sat down like a big boy in his chair, and let me put Maddie on top of him. What a cute bunch of kiddos I have!
