Ethan's Dedication

This past Sunday was a very special day for our family as we dedicated our Ethan at church with prayers that he will one day entrust his life to the one true giver of life, our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

We were given this special prayer and will continue to pray this over his precious life.

Dear God,

You love Ethan George and want his best.

You entrust Ethan to his earthly parents.  We ask that Paul & Cara would parent well.  But we know that even when parents do things well, unless You work in his life, it is only human effort that is at work.

We ask that Ethan would come to know Jesus as his Savior early in life.  We ask that all of his life would be devoted to Your glory.  We ask that Your promises be trusted so fully that peace and joy and strength would fill his soul.

We ask that Ethan George would be a person of the Book, one who loves, studies and obeys Your Word in every area of its teaching.  We ask that he would be a person of prayer, so that the power of faith and holiness would be upon him and that his spiritual impact would be great.

We ask that Ethan George would give himself to Your service, and not fritter away his time on excessive recreation, unimportant hobbies, or aimless ambition.  We ask that you would remove the influences that would lead him away from You and from all that is good and right and true.

We ask that You would protect Ethan from damaging experiences and people.  We ask that You would grant him positive relationships with the significant people in his life.  We ask that he would live his life for Your approval alone.

Amen.

After the service we had family over for a celebratory brunch.  The morning flew past and unfortunately I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked! 

I ordered mini cakes instead of one big one and they turned out beautifully!

It was a wonderful morning.  We are so blessed by our family and church community.  We praise God for our Ethan and the abundance of blessings he has poured over our lives.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Chris our Savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

~Titus 3:5-7

Fall Happenings

The month of October has been a whirlwind and I have to say... I'm kind of glad it's over.  We have been trying to cram in as many fun fall activities as possible, but have been plagued with colds, fevers, teething and bouts with the stomach flu as well as a hurricane of monster sized proportions!  Let's just say we have been battling a lot.

Not all of the fun was lost though.  We did still enjoy our trip to Shenot's Farm on a beautiful, cool fall Sunday.  James was enamored with the tractor!

It was a fun ride up the hill to the patch.

And there was plenty to enjoy at the top!

My sweet little pumpkin...

Compare him to James... two years ago!

And now look at my Jamesy... almost 2 1/2!

I love these guys!

Ethan was thoroughly tuckered out by the end of the trip.

We didn't actually buy any pumpkins at Shenot's this year.  The little boys are really still too little to carve and the big boy is not really all that excited by it anymore.  So, I had pumpkins painted for each of them instead.  They turned out so cute!

Each one had their own theme.

Due to the Hurricane Sandy our township opted to postpone Halloween.  So, we actually celebrated on November 3rd this year.  I managed to do a little photo shoot of my darling dalmation!

He is so cooperative and happy for photos that I just keep snapping and snapping!  He is almost sitting up.

But not quite!

Oops!  That's ok... He will just keep right on smiling.

My sweet mother-in-law came down to have dinner with us before trick or treat and then she handed out candy while we took James to a few houses.

Ethan got to stay in the nice warm house with her.  Brrr... it was chilly!  Our little fireman was all ready to go.  He was very serious.  No smiles for the camera. 

Well... I did get one.  But that was only because he was getting ready to loot our candy bowl!

In typical James fashion I heard him talking to his Little People all morning this morning telling them all to say "cheese".  Love that kid!

How about this one?  We're not really sure what he is... but you're never too old to dress up!

James loved trick or treating!  We just took him down our street in the neighborhood, but he could have definitely kept going.  Did I mention it was cold?!  Oh... and the Pitt/Notre Dame game was on.  Priorities people!

I don't think he ever actually said "trick or treat", but he became quite skillful at reaching into the bowl and taking what he wanted.  He did whisper "thank you" at each house.  It was so cute!

There was even a visit from the firetruck!  That was a real highlight.

And this woman downright scared him!  From there on out everyone was "spooky".

Once we got home he immediately dug into his pumpkin for a treat!

I can't wait until next year when we will have two little buddies to take around the neighborhood!

As October comes to a close I am so thankful for our family, for sweet boys and for our health.

Five Months Old!

Dear Ethan,

You are five months old and you sure are cute!

You are loving life and we are loving our lives with you in it!

You are a joy to be around and are almost always this happy!

Here is what you have been up to:

-Size 3-6 month clothes
-Size 3 diapers
-You are eating one meal a day.  Right now it tends to be around breakfast.  You are loving rice cereal mixed with any fruits and we have tried bananas, apples, pears and peaches.  I tried giving you an evening meal the other day, which I think you are ready to eat.  However, you were not a fan of squash!  We are going to try sweet potatoes next.
- You are eating 6 oz. bottles about four times a day and once at night.
- You are still a pretty inconsistent napper . We go back and forth from your crib to the swing and some weeks you do great taking 2+ hour naps a few times a day and then other weeks you will only sleep for  45 minutes at a time.
- You are sleeping in your bed at night and doing wonderfully.  You still get up once usually between 12 and 3 and then sleep until about 6 or 6:30 in the morning.  Bedtime is around 7 in the evening.
- You just rolled over from your back to your tummy!  You love to lay on your back and grab your toes and sing.
- You are very vocal!  You have taken to chatting quite loudly most of the time you are awake and usually lull yourself to sleep with these little chants as well as wake up to them.
- We got out the exersaucer and put it in the playroom and you are loving it!  At first you just stared at the toys like, "what are these things?" and now you are starting to grab them and try to put them in your mouth.
- You love your playmat and the walker, but no longer have an interest in the bouncy seat.  You like to be sitting up and looking around at the world and I have even noticed you trying to pull yourself into a sitting position when I set you down in a chair.
- You love to be outside and take walks in the stroller.  That is always a pleaser.
- You are also a pleasant car rider now... LOVE!

Life has been very busy lately.  There is very little down time, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  You are such a good and sweet baby and we love you so much!

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

~Psalm 16:11

                                   

Reilly's Farm & Pumpkin Patch

This past Friday we went to a local farm for a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch and a few other fun festivities.  My sister invited us along as she had organized the trip for her kids and several other homeschool families.  We were delighted to join them!  I knew James would love it given his affection for tractors, trucks and all other moving vehicles.

It was a chilly morning... 40's and windy!  So we left the babe at home with my sweet mother in law, put on our winter jackets and braved the cold.

Here are the boys in the parking lot before we started off on our adventure.

James was all googly eyed when he saw the tractor.  This is pretty cool stuff for a two year old boy!

Here are all the kids on the wagon.

We rode up to the pumpkin patch

And then we got to walk through and pick our pumpkins

James didn't really seem to understand that they were pumpkins and not balls.  He kept picking them up and throwing them!  Amazingly both of our pumpkins made it home with the stem still in tact.

Did I mention that it was cold?  Brrr... our little eskimo

After we picked our pumpkins we took a tractor over to this interesting little area that had a small corn maze called Candy Land and various different nursery rhymes depicted with pumpkins.  A nice woman shared with all the kids about how pumpkins grow.  James had very little interest.  Maybe next year!

At the very end there was a really fun slide that they had built down a hillside.  I thought James would like it.  However, it was like something out of the movie A Christmas Story.  Ho, Ho, Ho!  I sent him right down and it was a little faster than I initially thought.  Poor little guy screamed all the way down and had to be rescued by someone at the bottom before I got to him.  I took him down a second time trying to redeem myself and this time he rode on my lap.  I will say that there is a picture circulating... and it will not be posted!

By noon the sun had come out and it had warmed up a bit, so we ended the day with a picnic lunch.  At this point we were reaching total meltdown with several of the smaller kids including James, so it was a brief lunch, but enjoyable all the same.  

There are so many fun activities to do in the fall and this is the first year that James is old enough to start enjoying them.  It's so much fun!  We are looking forward to several more festivities before the season ends!