Bzzzzz

 Happy Halloween!  We started the Halloween celebration last weekend by carving pumpkins and bringing out the bee!  Ethan had no idea what was going on, but I think he had a good time.  :)

It was fun for Aaron and I to celebrate Ethan's first Halloween with him.  Ethan didn't get to actually carve the pumpkins, but he supervised well.  He was really hoping I would let him play in the pumpkin guts, but no deal...

Ethan went through a short phase of blowing bubbles and making the 'raspberry' sound all the time, which was in perfect timing with Halloween and his costume.  I think he really got into the spirit of being a bee!

Aaron's work had a Halloween party at the local Imaginarium so Ethan got to play with bubbles, watch marbles and all kinds of neat science exhibits.  He loved looking at the animals and especially loved watching the jellyfish. 

He's a cute little bumble bee.

E mastered a huge milestone this week - he sits for a long time on his own now! This is trick he's been working on for quite some time and this week he finally got it. Before we would prop him up and he would last at most 10 seconds before toppling over. Last Tuesday Aaron set Ethan down about to take his clothes off to give him a bath (which is why he's in the closet!) and noticed that E wasn't falling over! He figured out how to stablize himself and actually sit!

Another trick Ethan has been working on a while is crawling.  He started pulling up on his hands and knees in a crawling position almost a month ago and it seems like everyday he gets just a little bit closer to actually doing it. He still hasn't actually crawled but he spends a lot of time rocking back and forth, moving his legs forward and he swings his arms forward too. All we need is for him to figure out how to put it all together and actually move! Until then, we're enjoying knowing where he is at all times. :)

Another big event this week was that we finally got Ethan back to sleeping through the night (mostly). At about 6 weeks old I worked with Ethan to be able to fall asleep on his own once I laid him in the crib, which was fantastic. He knew how to soothe himself if he woke up at night.  That lasted until he was about 4 months when he went through a growth spurt which messed up his sleep and at the same time we disrupted his sleep schedule for several weeks when we had family visiting and were out and about enjoying the summer. After we got back onto a normal schedule I just expect Ethan to get back to sleeping through the night...he knew how so it seemed reasonable to me...

The last two months, Ethan would sometimes sleep 7 hours straight at night and then the next few nights wake up every two hours and we couldn't figure out what was causing the difference. I was more tired lately than I was right after Ethan was born because he was sleeping worse than he ever had. Aaron and I realized that since we knew he could sleep longer than 2 hours but wasn't doing it, it was time to help him sleep. So we did it - we made him cry himself to sleep one night instead of rocking him until he was out, so he could remember how to self soothe. It took 45 minutes for him to fall asleep that first night but once he did he slept 6 hours, ate, and slept another 6 hours! The next night we did the same thing and he whined for 5 minutes and fell asleep. Last night he just fell asleep a few minutes after I laid him down without any crying or whining. That first night of listening to our baby cry 45 minutes was horrible, but let me tell you the last three nights of fantastic sleep have made it worth it! We are happy to have our baby back to sleeping well!

Last weekend we went on a family hike with my mommy hiking group and it completely wore the little guy out!  He definitely loves his backpack.

We still don't have snow sticking on the ground down in the city, but the mountains are covered. Last Tuesday we saw a coyote sleeping in the road on our way down.