Ethan

"There has never been, nor will there ever be, anything quite so special as the love between a mother and a son"Author: UnknownThis could not be more true. And as one of my boys has turned another year older, I can't help but reflect on the last 3 wonderful years of his life. Taking a walk down memory lane was so fun, which is why it probably took me a week to get this post up. I hope you enjoy these pictures of Ethan as much as I did while I was uploading them.

Ethan was born January 18, 2008 at 1:20 a.m. He was 7 lbs 15 oz and a week and a half early, thankfully! He would have been huge!

I remember holding Ethan and him crying and crying right after he was born. I was so worried that he was going to be a hard baby. But I think he was just faking me out because he was my most mild and easy going baby.
Ethan was born in the middle of Jason's last semester of grad school. Not exactly the prime time to have a baby. But we scheduled him to be born over Martin Luther King Day so Jason could have a few days off from school. Jason had been living on 2 hours of sleep a night before we had Ethan so he was used to being awake at 2 a.m. But it had been such a long day, we were both exhausted.
Ahhh! Our first family picture. It still baffles me that it's been 3 years since we brought Ethan home from the hospital. At the same time it seems so long ago that we lived in our old house. We have come a long way in 3 years.
I loved this little Ralph Lauren velvet track suit. It was my favorite thing to dress Ethan in.
Ethan always seemed to have a grimace on his face for the first few weeks.
He hardly resembles this baby face now. Ethan's blessing day was so special. I don't remember everything Jason blessed him with, but I can recall that he was blessed to serve a mission. Jason didn't bless Kaden or Jase with this and think that is why I remember it so well. He also blessed him to be strong and valiant in the gospel. Recently when we are getting ready for church and Ethan sees we are putting on church clothes he lets his head fall back and says, "Ethan not wanna go to church." (yes he always speaks in the 3rd person) It's a little ironic.

Ethan loved his excersaucer. I could put him in it and he would play for literally hours. He would almost fall asleep in it. This picture was taken the day we moved to our new house.

The rest of the pictures on this post are out of order. I apologize. I just kept finding cute ones and couldn't resist posting them. Enjoy!

Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky. ~Fran Lebowitz Ethan was so handsome at Chris and Rachel's wedding the summer of 2008. I love this photo of him.

Ethan had a bit of an allergy to our dog Copper when he was a baby. Luckily he out grew it. I had almost forgotten until I was looking back and saw all the watery eye, runny nose baby pictures. Ethan and Jason on the climb down from the Timpanogas Caves.
Ethan was picking away at the birthday cake Jason made me.
Ethan can almost always be found with a car in hand!
Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it.

Always a messy face!

Ethan loves animals of all varieties. He would have spent all day at the petting zoo.

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

Ethan is so fun. I had almost thought we were going to totally miss the terrible 2's. Come to find out he was just saving it all for when he turned 3. He is busy and into everything. In typical Byrd boy style he is also a little destructive. I am hoping that he will soon stop just taking things apart and desire to put them back together again. He loves assembling puzzles lately so I hope that will translate to other things....soon!

Ethan loves to follow me around. He recently out grew wanting to put my make-up on with me. Jason was pretty happy about that. I always smiled when he put on my lip gloss and called it his "color".

Ethan is so quirky and unique and is constantly changing. We love having him in our family and he brings a smile to my face every single day!

Party Like it's Your Birthday

We had a small party for Ethan this year to celebrate his 3rd birthday. His very Lightning McQueen birthday that is. From his outfit, to the cake, the pinata, to the plates & napkins and 90% of his gifts it was all Lightning McQueen.

I guess that brings me to the cake.....oh the great cake debacle. It started out innocently enough with my mom ordering (I mean homemaking ;o)) Ethan's birthday cake. The second Ethan saw it he had to have it. We held off as long as we could for party guests to arrive and finally decided to just do the singing and the cake before everyone arrived. Luckily I got one good picture of the cake before it was no longer.

This is where it started to go down hill. As per custom Jason lit the candles on the cake.

Ethan was keeping his distance from the flames until Jen picked him up for us to sing.....then the meltdown began. Ethan wanted no part of being near the lit candles. And the fact that the fire was dangerously near Lightning McQueen and Mater who were atop his cake was all too much for Ethan to bare. Jase and Kaden quickly blew out the candles and we rescued Lightning and Mater.
Then all was well......almost.As Jase was leaning over the cake Jen gave him a little shove and in his face went. Before long Kaden's face was covered in frosting, my mom's face was covered and the cake was for all intents and purposes destroyed. Sorry Grandma Marley, I guess you can't always have your cake and eat it too.

After cake and ice cream and the rest of the party goers showed up it was pinata time! I was a little tentative to give Ethan a long stick after the fit he had with the cake. I wasn't too sure how he would handle beating the crap out of Lightning McQueen, but as it turned out he loved it. Crazy....ok, he is a boy, so maybe not so crazy. But all the kids had a chance to take a whack at the pinata and have fun.

And there was plenty of candy for all! Jase has some experience in this whole pinata breaking, get as much candy as you can thing. He has his technique down to a science. Instead of picking up pieces he sat down and scooped as much candy as he could under his bottom. He made quite the haul. Too bad Mom is mean and made him share with the girls.

We asked everyone who came to not bring gifts. Our boys are so very spoiled they really don't need anything. However Ethan still received quite a few presents.

I love how excited kids get for presents, whether they are theirs or not.
As much as Ethan loves Lightning McQueen, Sponge Bob Square Pants makes a close second. Grandpa Marley found Ethan a Sponge Bob lunch box and filled it with cars. Combining two of Ethan's favorite things was a clever move.
Kellan was a happy party baby!
Ethan had a great party and we were so happy to be able to spend it with so many of our family and friends. Thank you to all those that came and celebrated Ethan's birthday with us. We love you all!

3 month old Kellan

Our little man is 3 months old! He is a handsome handsome growing boy. When his doctor saw him at his well child check the first thing he said was, "Victoria aren't you feeding this boy?!" Looking at my rolly polly baby I was pretty puzzled. His doctor laughed and told me Kellan is in the 90 percentile for height and weight. Such a healthy boy! Along with growing Kellan's personality is really starting to blossom. He is very smiley and chatty. He loves to be held and still loves to cuddle with mommy. I must say I love this as well.

This morning I took a few shots of Kellan while I was waiting for Jason to finish getting ready. He is adorable! This was my favorite shot of the day.

Such a happy man!

Jason has a little idiosyncrasy where he raises one eye brow. It always makes me smile when I see him do it. And I nearly fell on the floor when Kellan was born and he started doing it too! Who knew it was genetic?! I love it!

Look at that little tongue. Kellan loves to play with his tongue in his mouth. He chews it, whirls it around, sticks it out and sucks on it all the time!
Precious baby feet!

I had fun playing with this picture. Kellan's little Calvin Klein baby ad.

I shot these yesterday. I love taking pictures of my boys, but for some reason Kellan is the only one that lets me....without complaint.

I just wanna kiss that little face!
Kellan's Gerber baby face.

Ok ok ok....maybe a little complaint. Photo shoot over!