Updates

I realized I never put up pictures of Ethan's finished room so here they are along with our first year with a Christmas tree.

He's smiling like crazy now and also laughing. He did a true laugh for the first time on Christmas Eve. After all the crazy things I've done to try and make him laugh all I was doing was rocking him and talking normally. For some reason he was just tired and happy enough to lose it and laugh. Since then we never know what he'll laugh at, shuffling cards, his activity center, and sometimes nothing in particular. He's also holding toys a bit now too. He loves his dog and monkey head blankets.

Christmas

We went to Storm Lake to spend time with my parents after the Baptism. Unfortunately I caught a nasty stomach flu bug so most of our time there was spent dealing with that. Fortunately for my mom that meant she got lots of snuggle time with Ethan. After that we headed down to Kansas City to spend time with Eric's family for Christmas.

Aunt Gracie kept a close eye on Ethan. She didn't know what to make of him. 

Christmas Eve

Buried in presents.

Baptism

While in Iowa we had Ethan baptized with his cousin Quinton. Ethan slept through pretty much the whole thing. The service was the same church where Eric and I were married so it was special for us. Lots of family made the trip to Ames to meet the boys.

Meeting Aunt Kristin.

Meeting Great Grandma Cassat.

Father Al showing off the boys during the Peace.

Great Aunt Di and Uncle George all the way from Chicago.

Great Aunt Elaine all the way from Lawrence Kansas.

Great Grandpa Argotsinger.

Great Grandpa Harley.

Godparents Aunt Kim and Uncle Randy.

Godparents Aunt Corinne and Uncle Travis.

Iowa Visit

We left on Friday the 16th for Iowa. We planned to go about 8 hrs and stop for the night. Ethan did great, and slept most of the time. When we got to our stopping point though, the hotel didn't have any cribs and it was still early so we decided to just go all the way to Ames. This proved to be a bit more difficult than we thought. Ethan screamed for about an hour and we were screaming on the inside. Once we got there we were happy to be done with the journey. Ethan met his cousins and loved watching them play. 

First play time with Quinton.

Connor loved playing with Ethan. He was always checking in on him.

Ellie dressed Maddie up for a photo op. 

It took about 30 shots to get a good one of all of them. This is the closest I got.

Cousin Alex was so sweet with him. He told me Ethan was really wiggely.

Corinne got the boys matching Santa suits. Poor Quinton wasn't feeling it, but Ethan was doing great!

He also met Aunt Kim and Aunt Corinne.

Aunt Kim couldn't let him finish his nap before holding him. I went in and got him out of the pack and play so she could snuggle him.

Our cousin Michelle came down from Chicago with all her kids too. We hadn't all been together since my wedding.

I love this video of Quinton and Ethan meeting for the first time. We were excited to see who would be bigger. 

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Thanksgiving

Grandma and Grandpa Argotsinger came out for Thanksgiving. This was the first time Grandpa got to meet Ethan. They got along like gangbusters taking naps and playing together.

Gram always gets some great pictures of Ethan with her fancy camera.

We had lobster one night before Thanksgiving.

Watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Note the balloon that happened to go by when I took the pic.

Cooking with wine is the best way to cook.

Ethan sat nicely in his high chair for most of our Thanksgiving dinner.

We had lots of random photo shoots throughout the week.