Thanksgiving

We hosted the Brandon Family Thanksgiving at our house this year for the first time.  In preparation, Caleb and Momma made these cute turkeys to have as centerpieces. 

 

 

In "Mommy Preschool" we studied the story of Thanksgiving and talked about Pilgrims and Indians and made puppets for them.  Mike and Caleb thought they should be added to our turkeys.  They do look pretty cute!

 

Yum!  Look at all that delicious food!

 

Hosting does pose a problem for picture taking...you're so busy getting the food to all be done at the same time, you don't take many pictures!  Sadly, there are only a few.  Here are Mike, Ma-Ma (Mike's grandma), Austin, Aunt Suzanne.  Also present were Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Buddy, Matthew, Kendall and Debbie (Mike's parents), and Kyle and Amy (Mike's siblings)

 

Uncle Kyle playing "football" with Caleb

 

The ball sure does look large in Caleb's hands!  He had a great time playing with Kyle, Amy, and Dada in the backyard.

 

Grandma gets some snuggle-time in with Ethan.

 

Ethan wanted Uncle Kyle's hat, but wasn't quite sure how to get it off his head!

 

"Don't I look good?  Thanks, Uncle Kyle!"

G.G.'s Party

Kati's Grandma celebrated her 80th birthday this year!  Kati's mom and her sisters and brothers (eight in all!) decided to give my grandma a huge party.  It was so much fun!  All of her children were able to make it and almost all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren too!

 

Here's the Woman of Honor...Kati's grandma, the boys' G.G. (Great-Grandma)

 

 

Two of Grandma's sister were able to come for the celebration. 

Here are Kati's Great-Aunt Suze, Grandma, and Great-Aunt Ellie

 

 

A photographer was there and we took lots of different family shots for Grandma.  Here is "Jan's family".  Kati (holding Ethan), Mike (holding Caleb), Grandma, Kati's Mom-Jan, Kati's Dad-Robert, Kati's brother-Rob, and Kati's sister-in-law-Aurea

 

 

Grandma with most of her Grandkids (only missing one!)

Back: Rob (Kati's brother), Melissa, Samantha, Shelby

Front: Kati, Zoe, Grandma, and Keira

 

 

Grandma with most of her Great-Grandkids (only missing one!)

Baby Sayde on Grandma's lap, Ethan and Caleb on the floor

 

 

Almost the entire family!  Whew, hard to get everyone (especially the babies) to look at the same place at the same time! 

 

Grothe Visit

 We were blessed to have Kati's family stay with us for a weekend in November to help celebrate Kati's grandma's 80th birthday!  We had so much fun, though too short of a visit!!

 

Aunt Aurea and Uncle Rob made a "chair" for Caleb and then proceeded to carry him over to the trashcan.  Caleb giggled and yelled the whole way...what fun silliness!

 

We treated our Washington family to a yummy Chick-fil-A dinner! (Isn't it sad that there is no Chick-fil-A in Washington??) 

When we got home Ethan got his first haircut.  Dada was doing a great job distracting Ethan while Momma tried to get those itty-bitty, fuzzy hairs.

 



 

Distraction stopped working and those "scary" scissors were no fun.  Dada had to take over while Momma tried to soothe Ethan.

 

Whew!  Only the pacifier would work.  You'd think he had his whole head cut, but only a little around the ears!

 Grandma Jan and Grandpa had so much fun playing with their two grandsons.  Doesn't Ethan look like he's saying, "Here I am, love on me!"?

 

Caleb was in heaven with Uncle Rob playing airplanes with him!

 

For screen time one day Caleb asked Uncle Rob to play Donkey Kong Country with him on the Wii.  Ethan wanted to get in there and play too!

 

 

Caleb also asked everyone to read him his rest or bedtime story and pray with him.  Here Uncle Rob takes his turn.

 

Caleb had to show Grandma Jan what he does for "work time" each day.  He was so proud to show her what he knows.

 

Aunt Aurea getting some snuggle time in with a very tired baby!

 

The day after G.G.'s party we went to Kati's Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate an early Thanksgiving while everyone was in town.  The weather was so comfortable that we had to take advantage of it when we got home.  The boys had such a great time having lots of people to play with!

 

You can never have too many pictures of Grandma and Grandpa with the grandkids!

 

Aunt Aurea knew just what Ethan liked to play with...Caleb's toys!

 

Caleb got to play lots of games.

 

Grandpa taught Caleb how to play "Bejeweled" and Caleb was hooked.  He would have played all weekend if we would have let him!  But it was fun to see the two working together to play.

 

Grandpa even got on the floor to play with Ethan too!

 

Ethan was much happier at the end of their stay since he was feeling VERY sick with a cold the first several days.  Here he even let go of the pacifier and smiled!

 

 

Scooting to Momma's leg to try and reach that camera!

 

 

Uncle Rob came back from a quick trip to Austin with Mike to see a Formula 1 race.  He pitched right in to help when he got back.

 

And Caleb, feeling neglected (or jealous?), got a piggyback ride from Aunt Aurea.

 

 

Here Ethan is saying, "Ooo...ooo."

 

Aunt Aurea and Caleb gave us a GREAT puppet show!

 

 

Aunt Aurea's horse even kissed Ethan.

What awesome Godparents the boys have!

 



 

Thanks for coming to visit Grandpa Grothe, Grandma Jan, Uncle Rob, and Aunt Aurea.  We miss you a lot.  Come again soon!

Ethan at Nine Months

Ethan is getting cuter and cuter each month...just ask any of his relatives!  It's getting hard to remember what he was like as a little newborn.  We have pictures as our desktop backdrop that scroll and it's amazing to see what a difference nine months makes!  He is definitely not that little bitty baby anymore!

Ethan has finally mastered forward motion.  Strangely enough he still isn't crawling and still doesn't like being on his tummy, but it gets him from point A to point B so he suffers through it!  His "army crawl" is rather lopsided, though, since he will pull with his left arm and then push with his right leg rocking back and forth as he moves.  This has gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion when his head bumps into the wall as he's trying to maneuver through the hallway!  I'm tempted to believe he will skip the crawling on his knees stage all together! 

He is also pulling up, though only halfway!!  He will pull himself up to his knees and stop.  I guess it's too much work to get all the way to his feet. :)  He has managed to pull the cloth off the coffee table a few times and found some interesting mail to chew and some fun Caleb toys that were sitting on top!  Time to "baby proof" the next level of our house!

Waving is intermittent with Ethan.  We can't determine if he waves for joy, for fun, or just because.  It doesn't seem very deliberate, but it's fun to watch!  And when it happens to coincide with saying good-bye to someone, we like to think he actually knows what he's doing! :)

Ethan's vocalizing has really exploded this month and he loves to say, "ma-ma", "da-da", "ba-ba", and "ya-ya".  No "Caleb" yet, which really disappoints big brother, but Caleb's working on it with him!  He also continues to make his fun "motorcycle/machine gun/airplane engine" noise with his tongue.  He's practicing rolling his "r's" for when he takes Spanish class. 

Food is finally tolerable at all three meals.  Dada has trained him to even open his mouth willingly to accept the next bite of food!!  We still only eat most things that are covered with a fruit flavor, but at least those veggies are getting in.  It is surprising how many people tell Ethan, "You must really love your food," when they see him, but this is not the case.  He's just a roly-poly baby regardless of the lack of food he eats!  He may just be my picky eater.  Only time will tell.

Ethan's personality is still one of caution.  He does not give smiles freely and often shows his "serious" face when people say "Hello".  It takes him a long while to warm up to most people, though this happens a lot faster when he's being held by Momma.  Instant smiles usually only happen for family:  Dada, Momma, Caleb, and our pacifier!  Yes, the pacifier is a member of the household.  Luckily it is not one in particular, any one will do.  We have to consciously limit pacifier-time to bed and fussiness or he'll keep it in his mouth all day.  And it is amazing how fast Ethan will scoot if he spies a pacifier lying on the edge of a table or chair.  Breaking this habit will not be fun!

All-in-all we are having a blast watching Ethan grow and change as he learns new things all the time. It will be so fun to see how he changes this month.

 

November Fun

November was filled with all kinds of fun activities and new discoveries.  Ethan has discovered how to scoot on his bottom and reeeeach to grab things off of the coffee table.  (Time for us to move things higher!)  One morning he was so proud of himself for "finding" Daddy's chips left on the table from the snack the night before.  The bag made a very satisfying crinkle sound.

 

 

 

Unbeknownst to G.G., we took this updated picture of her and the boys for a cute birthday gift for her!  Still hard to get Ethan to smile, but he's cute anyway. 

 

Look at those blue, blue eyes!

 

These are Mike's first grilled pizzas.  Don't they look yummy?  They were!

 

One of the members at church has converted most of his upstairs into a scale replica of a train line.  Then he opens his house up annually for people to come and see all of his beautiful (hard) work!  Caleb loved following the trains from one room to another and Momma was in awe of all the small details.  What an amazing hobby!

 

Ethan was not as impressed as the rest of us and would prefer to touch everything Momma wouln't let him.  The pacifier was his "consolation" prize.

 

Caleb wouldn't smile fast enough for Momma to take the picture of the engine coming out of the tunnel beside him and Dada!

 

I don't know if you can even fathom from the pictures what this really is, but the front of the picture shows the bannister for the stairs to go down and the hanging light is for the foyer...the train track was built suspended and cut into the wall to enter the room behind. 

 

In the middle of November our church had their annual Fall Festival.  Always a fun time to eat some yummy grilled food and play carnival games.  Caleb's favorite (as always) was fishing for a prize!

 

We sure do have a lot of pictures of Ethan sitting in his stroller while the rest of the family has a fun time...poor kid!  You'll enjoy these outings so much more when you can walk too, Ethan!

 

Here's Caleb trying to ring some pumpkins.

 

The bounce houses are always fun.  I LOVE this action shot.

 

What a cute kid!

 

Dada and Caleb got to go on the tractor pulled hay ride while Momma fed Ethan some lunch.  They did have a good time, though Caleb wouldn't smile.

 

Someone even brought some animals for a small petting zoo.  What a great time to play and enjoy the day together.