6 Months

Happy half birthday to Ethan!  He, as well as his parents, has made it through the first half year..whew! 

E's sixth month has been a huge one.  This month has been filled with firsts - he grew two teeth,  learned to sit up and crawl, started solids, began to figure out how to pull himself up, swam in a pool (made his mama proud!), saw snow for the first time and rode in a sled!  What a cool time in a baby's life!

The biggest milestone he mastered was crawling - after weeks and weeks of working himself through the process, this last week he put it all together and crawled himself across the room!  Now he's a crawling machine.  The days of being able to set him down in one spot expecting him to in the vicinity of it a few minutes later are gone - he is mobile!

Ethan has been a little barrel of energy for the last few months and now that he's mobile, he's using all of it to explore his new world.  He loves to check out all the corners of a room and everything in between, especially looking down the heating vents (which is funny when the heat kicks on as he's playing over it).  He loves to chase little balls across the room and crawl to Aaron or I.  It's fun to watch his adventurous spirit take him places rather than just explore whatever is right in front of him.

To celebrate E's half birthday, we gave him his first taste of solid food. Food is such a wonderful part of life, I really wanted his first taste to be meaningful.  I seriously debated about what to give him and settled on avocado. This is one of Aaron's and my favorite foods - anything is better by adding an avocado on it - so it seemed natural that he should taste this first. Plus, he was conceived in Texas AND was born on Cinco de Mayo - I felt like a little Tex Mex was appropriate for the occasion. As you can see by the picture, he was not a huge fan. This was the first thing he's tasted that wasn't super sweet and he didn't know what to think about it. We'll probably give him some fruit for the next round!

Part of Ethan's exploring the world is wanting to touch anything that Aaron and I pick up. This includes cups - he loves to 'drink' out of cups.  We started giving him little drinks of water a few weeks ago, but since he hadn't started solids he didn't really know how to swallow.  'Drinking' for him usually ended with water all down his front and all over us.  He really liked sticking his tongue in the water and playing in it.  When he did actually swallow some water, he would look up at us like "what the heck was that??".  Funny kid.

Ethan turning 6 months should have marked the end of my maternity leave from ConocoPhillips.  Per the original plan, last Monday I would have dropped Ethan off at daycare and gone back to the corporate world....but luckily a few weeks ago Aaron and I threw the original plan out the window and decided to extend my leave of absence from the company.  I realized it was important to me to put my career on hold for a bit so that I can be with E all day as he learns and develops.  I couldn't be happier with this new plan!

Look at that face - how lucky am I this little man is my new job!? :)

Since Ethan and I spend so much time together during the week, it is an exciting time every night when Dad gets home from work.  He thinks his dad is the silliest guy and giggles and laughs so easily with him.  Now that E is a little bigger and sturdier, play time has gotten to be even more fun because Aaron can now play wrestle with the little guy.  Ethan loves it!

Ethan laughs so hard when tickles and munches on his back...

...and when he swings him upside down (E LOVES to be upside down now!)...

...and carries him around like a sack of potatoes.  He is daddy's little man for sure!

Over the last week it snowed a lot at our house and up the mountain.  Here's a picture of the frosted trees in our backyard.  I love how the birch look in the winter!  Today we tried cross country skiing for the first time on the trails above our house and had a blast.  I'll post pics of the little man in his sled soon!