April

April was a super fun month for us!!!  Hannah had her very first dentist appointment!  She was very brave, but a bit apprehensive at first.  Thankfully the ladies at the front desk hung out with Ethan so I could focus on being with Hannah.  Her favorite part of the visit was getting her new toothbrush!  As soon as we got home, she ran upstairs and threw away her old toothbrush and told everyone we saw that she got a new one!!  The second weekend of April, we went to Asheville for a day trip to see the flowers at the Biltmore, and lucked out as it was the perfect weekend to see all the tulips in full bloom!!!  Tulips are by far my favorite flower and it was just so fun to see so many of them!!!!  Hannah had a blast with her cousins and Ethan tolerated the day pretty well in the Ergo, but loved the opportunities to crawl around in the grass!! Then for Easter we headed to St. Louis to see Grandma Margie and Grandpapa.  Again Hannah had so much fun playing her cousins and her grandparents.  She loved to go visit the horses with Papa, and read with Grandma.  Ethan was so cute smiling and waving to everyone.  Easter was fun, but unfortunately Hannah came down with a pretty high fever.  It was just a little virus, but it made Easter Sunday not quite as fun as it would have been.  She did enjoy hunting for eggs and opening up her Easter basket, and luckily the tylenol kicked in enough to enjoy Easter dinner!  Then the last weekend of April, we had a full house!!!  We had the Goforth 6 come to stay with another family of 4 from Asheville. My sister and brother-in-law and the mommy from the other family were doing a sprint triathlon here in Huntersville, and Abby and Caroline (my twin nieces) did their first kids triathlon!!  Again, Hannah LOVED having her cousins here, especially Molly.  And we all had a great time spending time with one another and cheering the triathletes on!!!  Hannah said that when she gets bigger she wants to do a race like Abby and Caroline.  We kept Lauren Sunday morning while the adults were racing, and just had so much fun with her!

Fun at the Biltmore gardens!

Easter Weekend Fun!

Cheering on Abby and Caroline!!

We also had a little photoshoot of the kids done at the end of April.  A woman at our church is starting a photography business and she asked if Hannah and Ethan could be part of her portfolio.  I jumped at the chance and am so incredibly glad I did!  Elaine, at Full Quiver Photography, is so incredibly talented and I am so pleased with the pictures she took!!  Hannah and Ethan had an absolute blast with the animals and all of the fun things about farm life!  They live on a beautiful property and have chickens, roosters, horses, cats and a bunny!  Hannah was able to hold Gus Gus the bunny for a picture, and Ethan LOVED watching the cats stroll by during the shoot.

Ethan is 10 Months

I don't have much of an update for this sweet 10 month old.  He continues to be such a joy and such a happy baby!  Ethan is getting better and better at pulling up to stand and can walk pretty steadily behind his walker toy.  He loves to "dance" by rocking back and forth whenever there is music playing.  He can definitely climb up the stairs now, so we are having to be pretty careful!  He likes to try to sit down on the bottom step and has fallen off once.  He is still nursing 4 times a day and continues to be a great eater!  He definitely prefers to be spoon fed, but I'm trying to give him more and more finger foods.  He loves yogurt and bananas, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, and black beans!  He also started to drink more water from his sippy cup and seems to get pretty excited about that.  He is still napping twice a day, but the morning nap is often cut short by our need to get out and about to run errands!  He is loving the nursery at church and Bible study, and doesn't mind being left at the YMCA too much.  He continues to adore his sister and loves saying dada whenever Daddy gets home from work.  He has also gotten pretty good at waving and it is so cute watching him fold his fingers over when he waves.  He is still fitting into his 12-18 month clothes pretty well!

March

I almost don't where March went!!  We blinked and it was over!!!  March was filled with warm spring days, followed by cold winter days in an unforgiving cycle that we thought would never end!!!  We had colds and tummy bugs, and longed for consistency in weather!  We did manage to do a few fun things on those nice days though!  One week, right as it warmed up, the kids and I headed down to Charleston to meet Matt while he was working there.  We had so much fun walking around, enjoying ice cream, yummy food, and beautiful scenery!!  Shockingly, the kids did a GREAT job sleeping in the same room together, and two nights, we were all in one room!!  It definitely meant an early bedtime for Matt and I, but we were pleasantly surprised by how well they did.  At the very end of the month, we drove up to Asheville for Molly Ryan's birthday party!  Hannah had a blast being a princess, and loved being with her cousins.  She thinks Molly is the coolest!!!

Ethan is 9 months!

What a big boy we have!! Ethan is crawling nonstop, pulling up to stand, and even starting to cruise a little.  He can also climb a little bit, and has yet to show any fear, so I'm afraid we may be in for it!!! He is 22 lbs 3 oz and 30 3/4 inches tall!  That is over the 95% in height and just under the 90% in weight.  He is definitely "thinning" out a little bit.  Ethan has not found a food that he will not eat.  He even takes medicine like a champ! Ethan only nurses 4 times, and has really transitioned to that schedule very well! He is a great sleeper and has really turned into a really good napper this past month.  He typically takes two naps a day, unless we have a super busy morning, then he gets by with only one.  He is a very happy boy, who loves to wave at people and smile, especially at the ladies!  This past month, he has gotten so cute with how much he loves his Daddy.  He definitely wants mommy for certain things….but when Daddy gets home from a trip, or just from work at the end of the day, Ethan gets so excited!!!  He crawls right to him or leans over for Daddy to hold him.  Ethan loves to play in Hannah's kitchen and at time stresses her out a little bit with the "mess" he makes.  It's pretty amazing how well he can occupy himself, though he doesn't like for me to leave his sight.  Whenever we turn on the vacuum, Ethan will find us in seconds and just follows us around trying to touch it.  He also loves to grab things out of the dishwasher.  He babbles a lot, and has begun saying mamma when he is hungry or tired.  Other than that, he says baba, dada, blows raspberries, and squeals with delight!  He is truly such a joy to be around!!

Hannah and "Baby Caroline" were feeling left out of the monthly pictures!

February

Where does the time go?  Winter is nearing an end and we couldn't be more thrilled!!  We had another "little" snow at the beginning of the month.  By the ruler I put on our deck, we got around 8 inches!  We really wish Daddy had been home for it, but unfortunately he was stuck out of town.  Luckily, he was able to drive to St. Louis and join his parents on their flight to Charlotte, so while we had some "snowed in" days, they led to a wonderful weekend!!!  We had a great time with the Seiters, and Hannah and Ethan just adore their grandparents.  Hannah loved having Grandma put her down for naps, help her get dressed, decorate with stickers, and do just about everything else with her!  Ethan was his usual happy self, and took to them both right away!  We are thankful that this little guy makes people feel so loved by his quick "warm up" to them!  We spent Saturday morning at the Carolina Aviation Museum and really enjoyed our time there!  It was really neat to see airplanes from The Wright Brothers' plane to the US Airways plane that crashed into the Hudson River a few years ago.  The span of history was really cool.  Hannah loved getting to sit in 3 different cockpits and said that she wanted to be a pilot one day.  It was a quick weekend visit, but we had so much fun and Hannah cannot stop talking about getting on an airplane to go visit Grandma and Papa in a couple months.

We've had a few days of nice weather this month, and have been able to get to the park a couple of times and we even had a little picnic one day!  We have been going to the YMCA on Monday mornings for toddler playtime in the gymnastics center, and it is so much fun!!  Hannah just has a blast, and it is fun seeing her motor skills develop so much! We have a hawk hang around our yard a bunch lately, and he has been really fun to watch.  He mostly just sits in the trees and occasionally we spot him soaring over to another limb.

At the very end of the month, Matt had the opportunity to go skiing with some of the men from his new company.  It was a great opportunity for him to do something he loves, and also to get to know his new company coworkers a bit better.  While he was gone, my parents came up for a visit, and again, the kids just loved having their other set of grandparents here!  Hannah had "Mama" put her to bed one night, and Grandaddy the next two nights!! We had a great time being with them and I was so thankful for their visit!  Grandaddy hung up our bird feeder, and we spent a morning at the Billy Graham Library.  Hannah now frequently talks about Billy Grammy, and the talking cow.