Ethan, advanced walking

This was taken just last night, when Ethan surprised me by walking all the way across the living room from the TV to me. I'm hoping I can get a video of him crawling before he completely gives that up, but it might be too late already. I'm happy he's walking---he's so excited!---but I'm also kinda sad to see him stop crawling. He was/is such a cute little crawler!

Ethan practices walking

Here is Ethan, practicing walking three days ago (June 26):

Ethan's First Orange

So far Ethan hasn't been very excited about solid food, but that's starting to change. Here he is experimenting with citrus fruit:

Going Car-Shopping

We've been car shopping lately, looking for a second vehicle that can handle the whole family (and any additions we might have). A couple of Saturdays ago we drove about 60 miles to look at one vehicle, and brought the kids to see how well they (and their carseats) fit.

We stopped for lunch afterwards at a park, so they had a place to stretch their legs.

Abigail wouldn't keep her eyes open for a good picture:


And Ethan found the only puddle around and proceeded to mop it up for the park department. Wasn't that nice of him?

Night-Night Time

Here's Abigail putting Teddy Bear, Panda Bear, Sarah the doll, and Rabbit to bed (yes, we are creative with our animal and doll names!)

Ethan

Ethan is a speedy crawler now, and will be walking before too long. He can pull himself up, and stand unassisted for 5 or 10 seconds. He entertained himself (and us) for nearly 10 minutes a few nights ago: pulling himself up and plopping back down with a giggle, and then repeating.

Cookie baking

Abbey loves to help with the cooking and the baking, especially when it's cookies!

Model Railroading

It's kind of hard to build train layouts right now, since Ethan likes to wreck them. Usually we wait until he's taking a nap, and then we work on elaborate setups:



A few weeks ago we drove by a real railroad yard, and Abigail pointed out the window and said, "Choo-choo train!" I was impressed that she could make the connection between her little trains and the real thing!

Vacation to Rockwell Lake Lodge

Early in May we took a mini-vacation up to the Hillsdale College Biological Station (Rockwell Lake Lodge) in Luther, MI. I needed to go up there for work, so we arranged it so that the family could come with me.

Here we are after several hours on the road, stopping at a park so the kids could play and stretch their legs.



Ethan with Mommy on the merry-go-round:


Abbey crawling through a tunnel to get to the big curvy slide: