Dylan and Steven

Here are pictures from our visit to my sister's house last month. It was fun to see Dylan and his cousin play together.

Christmas at the Beach

Our old camera came through one last time for us with these amazing beach pictures of Dylan on Christmas day.



Dylan was much less afraid of the beach this time. He even braved the water with his feet.

Trip to Daytona pictures

The day after Karl's wedding we drove to Daytona and only made 3 stops. We left at 7:30am and got to Martin's parents house at 9pm. One of the stops was to the Georgia Pig. Making this stop is a tradition of Martin's family. Martin says its the best BBQ ever. I thought it was okay. The place is crazy though - the parking lot isn't paved and the place is basically a shack. You'd never find it if you didn't know where it was even though it's very close to the highway. And for some strange reason you couldn't take pictures inside so here is a picture of Martin outside on the porch. He was very happy after eating lots of meat.

Here's us Christmas Eve at Martin's grandmother's church.
Christmas morning at Martin's parents house. The balloon was from Martin's grandmother's birthday almost two month earlier. Dylan found that more interesting than the wrapped presents. After we got them unwrapped he did get into his toys. Although he did go back to the balloon periodically over the stay.

Reading with Grandpa...
I think I'll just take a break and sit down for a while...

Growth Spurt

Dylan is definitely going through a growth spurt right now. He's eating a lot which is usual for Dylan and he's sleeping a lot - and at a regular time (10am to noon). And his 6-9 month clothes are starting not to fit. I got him on the scale and with clothes, a dirty diaper, and while holding 2 rubber ducks, he weighed 21 lbs. He's got two more weeks to be 20 lbs without a diaper.

Dylan has been so interested in food that he climbs up on the dining room chair and sits down and points to his Cheerios when he's hungry. Last night, while Martin and I were eating dinner (Dylan ate earlier since I got home late), Dylan climbs up in the chair next to Martin and starts doing the sign for more. We try giving him some of our food (rice, red pepper, broccoli, little bits of meat) but he usually spits it out. He is eating most fruits with his hands now. He like bananas and clementines a lot. And he eats bread and Cheerios and cheese by himself too. We're working on veggies. I think I need to steam them more to make them softer so he'll he them.

Dylan is very interactive with us. He comes over to us and if our feet are exposed he tickles them. He likes when we sing to him. He starts to dance. He makes fists with his hands and shakes them up and down. That's his dancing. I'll have to get a video of it. I'm still trying to figure out the new camera we got with our Christmas gift cards.

Karl's Wedding

Here are some pictures from the wedding Martin was in last month. I know some of you wanted to see proof that Karl actually got married, unbelievable, I know. The first two pics are from the rehearsal dinner. For my readers who are not married to him, the guy on the left in the first picture is Josh who was another groomsman.

Karl is really into music (a rock snob if you will) and while there was no dancing at the wedding, Karl made a wedding CD and gave a copy to us. The first song is the song that Karl and Katherine would have danced to if they had dancing at their wedding. The second song was the song that Martin and I danced to at our wedding, and the third song was the song Josh and Catherine danced to at their wedding. I was totally impressed that Karl 1) knew songs we danced to at our weddings and 2) put them on the CD. Karl is probably the only other guy besides Martin who knows which song we danced to at our wedding ("In your eyes" by Peter Gabriel).

Anyone else still have their Christmas decorations up?

When does it become noticable to neighbors? I'm going to try to find sometime this weekend to take them down but I wonder what my deadline is before people start talking. Jan 15th, MLKJr Day, have I already passed the deadline?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery

Dylan is all about imitating us these days. We are trying to use this to our advantage, like in teaching him how to pray, brush his teeth, blow his nose, etc. Sometimes its just too funny - like when we cough and he imitates that. Of course we need to be careful too as he could start imitating our bad habits - I think I've already caught him reaching for his hair to twirl like I do.

I started singing Itsy-Bitsy Spider to Dylan and he loves that. He sort of flaps his four fingers on each hand together and says "SSSPA, SSSPA" when I sing it. I think he's trying to say Itsy-Bitsy. Actually he seems to be practicing his "S" sound a lot - he points at the ChriStmaS tree and says "sss."

I guess this is a good time to learn animal sounds and the like. Anyone have any other imitation games that could be useful for learning?

Being Daddy

Dylan likes to put Daddy's badge around his neck. Actually he seems like everything about Daddy these days. In the morning, after I nurse him which is the first thing we do, he says "Da?" and does the sign for Daddy, wondering where Martin is.

He even likes to try Daddy's shoes on. Those are big shoes to fill son.

THE mantle

For the 3 and a half years that I have lived in our condo, I have wanted to get a mantle for our fireplace. It's been a dream of mine to have this mantle especially around Christmastime so we could hang stockings. This mantle has been the desire of my heart and my emotion I feel towards it is only surpassed by my love for my husband and my son. I have longed for this day since the first time I walked into the house when we house shopping nearly 3 ½ years ago. This year it became a reality. In the words of my husband, it is now the third love in my life. As an anniversary present to each other Martin and I agreed to get the mantle. But after 3 Saturdays that passed with out us finding the time to shop for it, I thought my hopes of having it for Christmas were crushed, especially since we'd probably have to special order it. These things typically need to be ordered in general and especially in our case since we have a light switch "brilliantly" placed 4 inches from the edge of the fireplace. Well, God provided the perfect mantle in time. And my husband gave me a wonderful gift. The store had a one in stock that was exactly the right size and shape and color. And all we had to do was put it up. Martin (and consequently my dad who got recruited to help) were under pressure to make sure the mantle remained perfect and they did great...:) The skilled craftsmen adeptly performed the task of installing the mantle. The mantle is perfect. I would just stop and stare at it and smile and still do. As I welled with joy over this masterpiece of carpentry, I began to decorate it for the Christmas season. My mom found the perfect stocking holders - 5 holders that spell PEACE. (Apparently that means she's expecting no more than 3 grandkids from us...:) I had also already bought some greenery and made the stockings (see below). Here is the result.

Pre-Christmas Pictures

Here's Dylan in a Santa outfit for a party we went to.

Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpap two weekends before Christmas since we were going to the other Grandparents in FL for Christmas. It took us forever to open presents since we tried to get Dylan to open his own. He was much more interested in the big blue bag. We couldn't even get him interested in ripping paper. But oh well. We should cherish these days.

Christmas Decorations

The "extras" of the holidays (decorating, mailing cards, traveling, parties, concerts and recitals, etc.) have pushed out blogging on my priority list for the last month so I need to catch up on a few things. This year (since we decided to finally get a mantle shelf for our fireplace, see later post) I decided to make Etner family stockings. So I go to Michaels to get the stuff and wonder how many I should buy. Knowing that we would like to have more kids, and knowing how I would be really annoyed if all our stockings didn't match, I decided to buy enough stockings to cover any future children. I bought 8 stockings all together. Not saying that we plan on having 6 kids but just in case, and I bought green ones for the boys and red ones for the girls (4 of each) so if we have 3 boys we're still covered. My mom is slightly worried that I'm actually serious about having many children which would mean I'd be having children into my 40s (oh no!). We shall see what the Lord brings, but in the mean time, I'm preparing...:)

Here are the stockings I made. This is about the extent of my craftiness, anything more I'd really screw up. I was pleased with the result.

Dylan the Destroyer

Dylan has become a destroyer. If there is a sense of order, which in our house is minimal, it must be disordered. Toys cannot stay in a line. Stuffed animals cannot remain on their low perch. And of utmost importance to Dylan, books cannot remain on the bookshelf. See for yourself:

1) Dylan, the agent of chaos, methodically removes books from the second shelf to a disorderly pile on the floor.

2. The enemy of order rests to contemplate his strategy for the next shelf of the bookcase.

3. Satisfied that his work is complete, the destroyer savors his triumph with a tasty bookmark.

More pictures from Thanksgiving trip to PA

Me and Dylan playing the piano.

Presbyterian bear and Lutheran bear joined us on the trip.
Here's Dylan and my mom on the train at the mall.
I think Dylan really liked the train.

Dylan's first haircut

Dylan did great at his first haircut. He wiggled a lot but the hairdresser (Heidi) was able to cut his hair despite the wiggling. It took awhile but he didn't really cry much at all.



Ta-dah. The finished product...

"Before" pictures

Here's how crazy Dylan's hair was before we got it cut...