Ethan is 5 months old!

Ethan continues to be such a joy!!  He is really the smiliest baby I have ever seen.  He cries when he gets tired, hungry, or if big sister plays a little too rough.  But other than that, he is just always smiling!!!    He has started to really laugh a lot!  He loves to watch people and will often laugh at funny faces or loud noises.  He loves to be surprised, so peek a boo is one of his favorite games!  He also has a blast with patty cake!  He hasn't been sleeping quite as well as in my last update.  We have had some nights where he gets up 2 or even 3 times!  But most nights at this point he wakes up once, while occasionally still giving us a full nights sleep.  We have started baby food.  So far Ethan has had rice cereal, avocado, and butternut squash.  He has really done a great job eating, and doesn't seem to love the squash but will eat it fine!  He is rolling over like a champ and started to push up to his hands and knees this past month.  On his 5 month birthday he started rocking back and forth while on his hands and knees!!!  He really is growing too fast, and I fear that we are going to have a mobile child much earlier than expected!!  He can sit for a few seconds, but doesn't mind when he falls over.  He has started loving to hold toys and his favorite things to play with are his buzzy bee, any burp cloth, or any blanket.  He also loves to grab onto hair!!  Hannah and I can often be found saying, "Ouch! Ethan, let go of my hair!"  He has two teeth on the bottom, and is full fledged into 9-12 month clothes.  He is actually beginning to outgrow some of the 6-12 month clothes from Gymboree.  Ethan weighs 20lbs 2oz and is 29 inches tall.  He continues to be "above" the 95th percentile in height and weight!  

October

October started out with our second trip to St. Louis since Ethan was born!  Matt's parents celebrated their 50th anniversary on October 5th and we (Matt's siblings and their spouses) threw them a party!  What fun to see lots of family and friends and spend time with everyone!  We are so thankful for Kurt and Margie and the commitment they have shown to each other and to God.  It is so rare in our modern society to see such an example!

We had tons of fun at the party and for the weekend as a whole.  The kids did great on the flights.  Ethan slept most of the time, and Hannah had fun looking at books, doing a puzzle, and coloring.  The weekend was over too fast, but Hannah absolutely LOVED playing with her cousins:  Aaron, Andrew, and Sean Henry.  She also really enjoyed spending time with Claire and Grace while they babysat.  Ethan was so happy and loved to "talk" to everyone and was just full of smiles.

Since St. Louis, I feel like the rest of October just flew by!!!  On the 12th, we went to the UGA vs Mizzou football game in Athens.  It is always so fun to be back in my college down!  Despite Georgia's very poor showing, we had a good time.  Matt was thrilled with Mizzou's win of course, but was very nice and didn't rub it in!  Hannah and Ethan had a great time with Mama.  Ethan took bottles like a champ!

Then the weekend after that, we headed up to Asheville on Saturday for Lauren's baptism on Sunday.  It was a very fun, yet quick, trip.  Hannah just really loves playing with her cousins and Lauren is so precious!  We were also able to celebrate her first birthday a couple weeks early.  She was so cute trying the cake, but looked like she didn't want to get too messy!!  We love our sweet little Lauren Lucille and are so thankful that she is in our family!!

We've had lots of fun enjoying the cooler weather.  We made our first Jack o' Lantern and although Hannah is afraid of it, she LOVES eating roasted pumpkin seeds!  We took our little monkeys to church on Halloween for "Reformation Day" and Hannah had a blast running around, jumping in the bouncy house, getting her face painted, and riding her first horse!!

Fun in St. Louis

Sweet cousins at the Renaissance Festival!!!

Sweet Goforth Family

Halloween Fun! 

Ethan is 4 months old!

Every month just goes by so much faster than the one before it.  This past month, Ethan has just continued to flourish!  He is a happy baby who is now sleeping in his own room, and started sleeping through the night about 2 weeks ago!  What a difference that makes to my days!!!  As soon as we moved him to his big crib in his room, his sleeping instantly got better.  I think he had just gotten too big for the thin cradle mattress.  Naps are still somewhat iffy but we are getting better.  He takes most naps in his crib unless we are out and about.  He still sleeps pretty well in his carseat, but now HATES to be in the swing.  He really enjoys sitting up and seeing the world, and we now put him in his reclined high chair while we eat.  He loves grabbing onto toys and his favorite right now is a little bee with shapes attached to it.  Ethan is obviously still a great eater, and nurses about 6 times a day.  He still primarily rolls from back to front, but has started being able to scoot backwards a little bit, and he goes around in a circle too!  He loves his exersaucer and can definitely entertain himself for a while in there. Ethan recently found his feet and loves grabbing hold of them, but for some reason will only grab them while barefoot!  At his 4 month check up, Ethan weighed 19lbs 12oz, and was 28 3/4 inches long.  That is a whole 2 inches taller than last month!!!  I've still been putting him in 6-9 month clothes, but have been noticing that they are getting tight in the length!  And I looked at size charts for gap and gymboree 6-12 month size (which he has been wearing), and he is either over the height limit or almost!  I have NO 12-18 month clothes yet, and he still has a few pounds to go before maxing out the weights on any of his clothes, so hopefully they will all work a little longer!  Ethan has a super sweet belly laugh and has really started to respond to people doing silly things and tickling.  So far he doesn't have a bit of stranger anxiety, which is such a blessing to me!! We are so in love with this little boy!

September

September has flown by and fall and just hit us all of a sudden!  We are enjoying the cool mornings and evenings and the warm afternoons.  Right off the bat, September took off running!  We got home from Lake Lanier and a few days later our friends from Arizona came to town.  They have a 3 year old daughter and a baby boy just a month older than Ethan.  They came in on a Friday and we all left Sunday to hit the beach in Charleston!  We had a great time seeing the sites and playing at the beach.  Mackenzie and Hannah played so well together, and it was a great time to catch up with old friends!  We had not had the opportunity to see them since Hannah was about 10 weeks old when we flew to AZ for a visit.

Then, they left on Friday, and my parents arrived late afternoon the same day!  And then the next day my sister and nieces came to town!!!  We had Ethan baptized on Sunday and it was so special to have some family able to be there.  We are so thankful that the Lord gave us sweet Ethan Matthew and we pray that He helps us to raise him to be a Godly man.

Since then Hannah, Ethan, and I have started to go to Community Bible Study and we are just having a great time with that!  I'm so thankful for the opportunity to study God's Word and have some time with other women.  The kids are doing great in their classes and I think it's also very good for them to have some time away from me!  Hannah also had a kidney ultrasound to see whether or not she has outgrown her kidney reflux. Which we are thrilled to say that it looks as if she has!!!  In other Hannah news, she is officially potty trained!!  We are so proud of her!  She has done awesome and really it just took her deciding that she was ready.  We've had minimal accidents!