Ethan's 2nd Birthday

I seriously can not believe that our little boy is already 2 years old! Where has the time gone?! The other night I was lying in bed thinking about Ethan and how before he was born, I could have never imagined the love I would have for that little baby growing inside of me at that time. I seriously dont remember what life was like before we had him but it must have been boring and dull compared to how our lives are now with Ethan in our lives! He is so much fun and really is a good boy. Before I had Ethan, I was excited to be having a baby but really had no idea how much fun and how rewarding having a child is! I have loved seeing him grow up and all the developmental milestones that have come with it. I really did not understand how much love I could have for one tiny little person either and then how much that love grows as time goes on. I love being a mother! It's the best job there is!

Ok so before I start to cry, here is what we did to celebrate Ethan's 2nd birthday...

Because we were going to be in Minnesota for Ethan's real birthday, we invited all the Smith's out for swimming, cake and ice cream. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures to document going swimming but we did and we had a blast doing it! After, we came back in for some Mario Kart racing which Ethan had to be a part of..


He loves to sit in his "Cars" chair that the Smiths gave him! It's just his size!

After a few rounds of Mario Kart, we decided to have some cake and ice cream! Here is Chalene and than showing off his Wall-e cake. Now before you judge me and my creativity skills I will have to say that this is my first cake to decorate, ever, and I actually think it didnt turn out half bad. Yes, I know some of you have made amazing castle, cars, etc. cakes that blow mine out of the water, but I like my homely little Wall-e cake :) The most important thing though was that it tasted WAY better than it looked!


After that, Ethan opened up his presents. He opened up another present from the Smiths which was a Little Einstein rocket ship with the character Leo included. It's actually the rocket ship turned into a submarine, made for bathtime,but Ethan cant tell the difference. He LOVES Little Einsteins and was SO excited to see this! Infact, we tried to get him to open up a few more gifts from us but nothing was as important as his "Einstein." He would open up our gift, look at it, push it off to the side and say "Einstein, Einstein!" reaching for his Einstein toy :)

Ethan loved the cake! Sometimes it makes me sick to my stomach at how much food this kid can fit in his mouth. He will have no competition in elementry school with the game chubby bunny. He'll beat em' everytime!

We also bought him a Toy Story backpack that rolls on wheels...it's great for traveling!


After cake and ice cream, we all decided that we needed to burn off a few of the calories by doing P90X- Abs.....Justin's family had never heard of it or have seen it before. They thought it was quite the workout!

Here is Ethan wearing Jordan's goggles. They are quite fitting with his Einstein submarine!

Ethan was so happy to have the Smith family over and just played with his aunts and uncles the whole time!
To end this post I would love to tell Ethan (and everyone else) a few reasons why I love him so much:
- I love how you talk ALL the time but I can only understand maybe 40% of what you say...
- I love how you have at least 2 long stories to tell me everday and how you crack yourself up when telling them ..
- I love how you love to jump off of anything and everything that is at least twice your height but yet I am amazed at how you land so gracefully everytime..
- I love racing you from wall to wall in our house and how you say "Red, Set, GO!" everytime, even though you always leave before you say go..
- I love singing songs with you and how you always request another song before going to sleep by saying "More, Sing!"
-- I dont so much love that you can be a hitter and a pusher, but we are working on that, right buddy?!
- I love reading books with you and seeing you learn so many new things
- I love seeing you jump up and down and run around in circles anytime you get excited
- I love hearing you say "Mommy! Mommy!" and then an undecernable (sp?) sentence after..
- I love hearing you repeat prayers, even if it is the last word of the sentence.
- I love how after prayer you always know that "1,2,3 Squeeze" is coming and you get so excited!
- I love how excited you are about life and how much you have taught us over the last 2 years. We love you Ethan and are so grateful that you are part of our little family. Thank you for bringing so much joy and happiness to our home!

Ethan's 2 year stats:
Height: 35.5 inches- 50-75%
Weight- 26 lbs- 25%
Head- 49cm- 50-75%

I also wanted to add a picture time line of Ethan- Sorry, I know that this post is kinda random..

Ethan Justin Smith- a few hours old

A week old

4 months old

6 months old

1 Year old

1.5 years old

2 years old!

Date Night!

Just to update from my previous post, Justin took me to go see the theatrical (broadway version) performance of Beauty & the Beast and I absolutely loved it!


We saw it at the Hale Center Theater here in Gilbert AZ and it really was an incredible performance. It is a smaller theater but you can see the actors faces, expressions, and everything, and that I love. Going to see broadways, plays, dance performances, etc. has got to be one of my favorite things to go out and do (expensive taste, I know). I'm not sure why but I have cried with every musical/broadway I have seen. I cried in this one, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables- I basically bawled through the whole thing, and I also have cried while watching the BYU Cougarettes, the BYU Young Ambassadors, American Idol, etc. This can actually be quite embarrasing when sitting next to strangers who are probably wondering what's wrong with me. I think I am always just in awe at the talent that these people have. I love to watch people sing and dance and I always just think of what a beautiful talent they have been given. I can always feel the spirit when I see or hear these beautiful performances and I think Heavenly Father can really speak to others through those performers. I really wish that I had that sort of talent and I hope that one of my little girls do someday, so I can continue to cry :) Anyways, it was so nice to go for a night out on the town with my sweet husband. I hope we can do it again sometime soon! Thanks Justin for a wonderful night!

I'm Excited!

This is the email I received from my sweet husband today...

Ash:

You have a date this Saturday at 7:30pm with your husband. Dress is semi-formal-casual. Love you and see you soon!

Justin

I am so excited to finally go out on a date with my husband! It's been way too long since we have been out on a real date! The date is a surprise so stay tuned to see what Justin has planned for us....

Trip to Minnesota

We just got back from a 2 week vacation up to the land of 10,000 lakes and had such a fun time up there with my parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. My mom is originally from Minnesota and when her father passed away a few years ago, she inherited a beautiful piece of property located right on a lake. My parents have been saving up and making plans to build a cabin (well, it's more like a house but we'll call it a cabin) and this summer is the summer they are building it! They had a company build the house for them but dad needed some help with building the garage, staircases, basement, doing the electrical, plumbing, etc., so we were more than willing to fly up there and help them out! We most definitely took a last minute advantage of Ethan flying free and flew out the evening of July 8th (the day before his 2 year birthday)! We arrived super late into Minneapolis, stayed in a hotel there for like 4 hours and then hopped on a Greyhound bus early the next morning to head down to Lakefield, MN which is about 3 hours away from the cities. We have decided that buses definitely attracts some very odd people, but it was a lot of fun and Ethan did great on it! Once we arrived in Lakefield, my parents picked us up and took us back to my Uncle Mike and Aunt Donna's place (which is the same place where my mom grew up). Mike and Donna were so awesome to have us stay in their home and I seriously don't think I have ever eaten such good food (or so much) before! We had amazing meals for every meal which was always followed by some sort of incredible, mouth-watering dessert. I'm pretty sure I packed on a few pounds.. it's just too hard to say no!
Anyways, so later that night we celebrated Ethan's 2nd birthday!

Here he is opening up the presents..

and finding a Buzz Lightyear action figure!!!

and also a Woody doll, both from Grandma & Grandpa Sims!!! Despite his face, he was sooooo excited to see these two toys!

And they have went to bed with hmi every night since, with Wall-e close by too :)

And he also got an Elmo doll from his Great-grandpa & Grandma Sims. This Elmo is really cool and will sing, dace , tell jokes, stories, etc. Ethan loves it! Thanks Great-grandparents!

After presents, we ate some yummy angel food cake with frosting and strawberries. Because Ethan doesnt get sweets too often, he prety much devored his peice as fast as he could. Check out that mouthful!

Ethan also had a lot of first time experiences with seeing all sorts of farm animals, riding super big tractors and semis, playing with toy tractors in the mud and being absolutely filthy at the end of the day! This place is like little boy heaven, he loved it!

We went out in the pasture and saw hundreds of cows!

They got pretty close to us too!

He was a big helper with grandma in collecting the chicken eggs


and he loved daily 4-wheeler rides as well


We have decided that we need to buy him some tractors and more trucks because he couldn't get enought of them up there!


Anytime this baby would start up, Ethan could hear it from anywhere and would come running over as fast as he could saying, "Ride! Ride!" Grandpa was always so good to let Ethan ride with him wherever he went.

This is their cute little house! We are so excited to come up and visit my parents here during the summers (and only the summers) :)

And here is the beautiful view of the lake from the back of their house. Not bad, eh?!

Dad and Justin working on building the egresses for the windows..

Justin with the finished product

I had no idea how much work it takes to build your own home! These boys worked pretty much from sun up to sun down if the weather permitted. Here is dad and Justin clearing away some trees which then gave us the beautiful lake view shown above


My Uncle Mike was out bailing hay and was kind enough to take Ethan out with him! He looks mad in all these pictures, but I promise he was loving it!

My cousin, Brock, took Ethan out on the tractor as well..


Uncle Mike also let Ethan play around on the big semi-truck. Ethan's favorite part? Honking the horn of course! And man, is that thing loud!


Ethan was definitely hard at work too...
He loved to steal everyones snacks! Here he is caught in the act!

He spent a lot of time watching the tractors at work. He sat here and watched this tractor haul dirt for probably 45 min. He was mesmerized!

and yes, it was actually cold the last few days we were there. Everyone else said it was "perfect" but im pretty sure it was freezing for this TX/AZ girl!


We had so much fun while we were there and I loved that our little boy could be just that, a little boy! I love that he loves to play in the mud, dirt, and is obsessed with tractors! Thanks everyone for making our trip so much fun and we will look forward to coming up next summer as well!