We spent a weekend in October down at Brett's parents' St George house. It was a lot of fun. (I do realize it's December now. I just haven't been taking pictures!)

We got Ethan some cute new jammies. He's so handsome! And big!
I asked him to smile for the camera and I got this. Funny boy. His camera smile has gotten more interesting over the past couple months. I'll have to post one of the latest ones.
They have cable at the house, including the Speed Channel, so we all watched the MotoGP races that weekend. If you look closely, you can see that they each have a little toy motorcycle clutched in their hands. Ethan is eating cereal, hence the funny face. But he sat there and watched the whole race!

bragging mother

Ethan can count!

Whenever I put a onesie on him, I always say "Ok, time for snaps! 1-2-3!" as I snap the bottom. Yesterday, he totally beat me to it. I said "Time for snaps!" And he said, "1-2-3!" He's a genius boy!

The real genius part is that he understands the concept. Brett found him counting 3 of his HotWheels cars after his nap today, "1-2-3!" over and over. And if I ask him to count, he'll say "1-2-3!"

I'm so proud.

update (with pictures!!)

Sheesh, just getting all the pictures off my camera and onto the computer takes forever (when I let it go for so long). Then I just procrastinate blogging even longer because it ends up taking me seventeen times longer than I think it will.

Let's see...Ethan news. His favorite (or only) number is 3. If I give him two crackers he looks at me and says "three!" and so I have to give him another one. When Ethan and Brett are practicing their drumming (we got Ethan junior sized drum sticks), Brett goes "one, two, three, four!" and starts drumming--Ethan goes "three, three, three, three!" If I ask him something with the word "too" at the end of the sentence, "Do you want to go, too?" He says, "Three!" (meaning "yes").

He's getting more and more independent and spontaneous. He knows more words than I think he does and he uses language in his own way, without me prompting him to say this or that. It's so fun that he is starting to really notice his world and to comment (constantly) on it.

What else. He's very interested in the new baby. He comes up to me frequently and lifts my shirt to poke my belly. He gets very excited when anyone says the word "girl" and shouts it over and over. He can say "Ellie" with a cute exaggerated L sound. I don't know what he's thinking about it all or if he understands what is going on, but I do think he understands much more than I would think for being 18 months.

This is back before we cut his hair. I can't believe it was so long!

Just before Ethan's very first haircut!
I think he felt a little like Samson.
We left the back long. Brett called it "Grandma in front, Daddy in back." I called it a mullet.
Ethan loves anything music. When he found out these little buds were making music, he carried them and the iPod around everywhere he went.
Beautiful baby.
Second haircut, made to match Daddy's.
We went up to Silver Lake to walk around the boardwalk. It was too much for me, he kept almost tripping into the water.
Yesterday, for Anabelle's birthday present, we took her to the Natural History Museum. We all had a lot of fun. Ethan ran through the whole museum, yelling all the labels he knew. "Dinosaur bone!" "Fish!" "Bug!" "Duck!"

we're having a baby girl!

We're naming her Rayen Elizabeth Kocherhans. She's due in February!

Cute profile

Little feet

Terminator face

Terminator arm and hand (There's just something about the way these ultrasound pictures turn out--reminds me of the Terminator!)

cute things

Ethan is getting so big! I'll post pictures soon, but here are a few stories:

Last night at dinner, he kept looking between Brett and me and his food and laughing, saying (and signing) "happy! happy!"

Today he came up to me and put his arm around my neck for a hug, saying "mma, mma, mma". I couldn't figure out what he was doing until he puckered his lips out for a kiss. Then I remembered that I had just given him a big hug and kisses all over his cheeks ("mwah! mwah! mwah!") He wanted more kisses!

He looked out his bedroom window recently and noticed our car was gone. So he said "Mama?" and Brett told him I was at work. So the rest of the afternoon he walked around saying "Mama" then he'd sign "work".

He's fascinated with keys and locks right now. I give him my car keys and a step stool and he'll stand at the door playing with the lock.

He's expanded our family since Jackie and Joel have moved back to Utah from Chicago. Now, when he walks around talking to himself, he'll say "Mama, Daddy, Joel, Blythe, Jackie, Mama, Daddy..." He's started talking in sentence form--still a lot of gibberish, but it flows like a sentence now.

We cleaned Brett's music space in our house, so he's started working on his guitars again. And so has Ethan, naturally. (He copies everything Brett does.) Brett sets a guitar out for Ethan to work on while Brett works on his. Brett got a great picture of this I'll have to post it.

Brett drove Ethan by the Ferrari shop recently. Ethan looked out his window and noticed the cars and turns to Brett, "Dada! Car! Car!" Good taste, baby.

Brett showed him how iPods and headphones work and Ethan walks around with a Nano tucked into his pocket, holding the earbuds into his ears and singing as he dances around the house.

As Brett says, everything Ethan does is super cute. Every day I am amazed at how smart and talented and fun he is. Every day I love him more and more!

ethan baby

We were trying to figure out if Ethan is right or left-handed by checking which hand he threw the ball with. He threw with both hands every time. Ha. He's both-handed.



This video shows part of Ethan's bedtime routine. If you watch him, you can see him sign BATH in the beginning, then HELP a bit later. The first time he signs HELP, I don't acknowledge it, so he signs it again like "Duh, Mama!" So smart!



I love our laundry chute!!

birthday racing

Brett's birthday, Memorial weekend, and World Superbike all happened at the same time again this year. Ethan and I got to participate a bit more this time. Ethan was a little more interested in the parade (notice the miniature Ducati in his hands)...
...than he was last year. (So tiny and so cute!)
Friday night we went to the festivities at Gateway. Here is Max Biaggi (the racer that ended up winning the weekend) telling Brett to make sure Ethan has earplugs when we bring him to the track.



Brett was at the racetrack Saturday and Sunday, but Ethan and I only went out for race day on Monday. He's learned to love sitting on motorcycles this week. Can you see his race face? It's serious business.




We had tons of moto-fun! And although Brett and I got quite sunburned, I am proud to say Ethan didn't at all!

i hate thinking of blog post titles almost as much as i hate thinking of FB statuses.

how we rock

We had a super cool jam session while Jackie, Joel, and Blythe were here.



This one features the babies. Blythe has a little stage accident at the end, but don't mention it to her...she's still pretty embarrassed.



I love this one because Ethan totally gets into it with a rockin' vocal solo.

resolutions, schmesolutions

I just uploaded the past few months worth of pictures from my camera. 781 pictures, but only about 12 of them turned out well. The camera takes great pictures, but the composition of the pictures is not so good (meaning it's an operator issue). -sigh- But I'm not going to make any statements about how I'm going to do better--I'm not promising anything!

Ethan turned one year old in March. He is the most beautiful baby in the whole world.

He had to get used to being on the grass this spring; it was tough since he'd been inside all winter!
He is 14 months old and has only 3 teeth.
Ethan and Daddy have a sweet Hotwheels collection. For his birthday, Ethan got 12 new Ferraris! And a few other cars as well.
Snowing in April, bah.
Blythe (and Jackie and Joel) have been staying with us this week. We played outside when we could, although it's been raining most of the time.
Blythe watching on as Ethan has a temper tantrum. Aren't those supposed to start when he's 2? Seems a bit early to me!
Bubbles!!
Swinging!
About a month ago, we went to Miller Sportspark for the Ferrari Challenge races.


Ethan loves cars--really he loves anything that moves and has a loud motor. He has different sound effects for each type of vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle, etc). The video exhibits his Ferrari sound effects.

a brief update

So much for blogging more, right? Oh, well. It'll come back.

Ethan started preferring walking to crawling on Friday. Brett said he saw Ethan standing and then he wanted to get somewhere, so he bent down to crawl. Brett said it was like something clicked in his brain, because he paused, stood back up, and started walking. He'd been doing a few steps here and there up to that point, but now he's walking everywhere!

He loves to read. I moved all his books down to a low shelf so that he has access to them. He sits down surrounded by his scattered books, reading to himself for 20 minutes at a time (or sometimes more). I just caught him reading a book to himself, babbling away, but when I watched him for a minute he was babble signing too! He was moving his hands all around while he pointed at the pictures and words. So cute!

a video and some pictures!

I've been procrastinating posting any pictures, because I've felt like I need to put up everything since I last posted. Ha. I'm just going to post a few recent pictures now and then one day when I'm feeling very productive I'll post the very cutest pictures taken during my blogging break.

I'm promising pictures in return for a favor. Please go to this website and watch Brett being famous in his band's new video release! It is so very awesome. Each time I watch it, I like it better! So please go watch the video and then tell all your friends to go watch it too!

And now that you have done that, here is my beautiful baby!




I can't believe I'm such a slacker. I haven't really taken many pictures since Christmas! Yikes, it's time to start snapping again.

journaling

I was talking with a friend of mine who told me to start writing a journal about everything that Ethan is doing, so that I can give it to him when he's older. I was ready to run out to a stationary store and get a pretty new book to write in when I remembered that I have a horde of cute little journal books in my office. And then I was reading an article in my parenting magazine about powerful Mom bloggers and I remembered my sweet little blog! It's the perfect answer to an Ethan journal/photo album/whatever I want it to be. Hooray!

Currently, Ethan is asleep in the room that has my external hard drive with all the recent photos on it, but never fear! Pictures will be coming shortly.

Ethan is so big now! He's cutting his first teeth (two at once). He is cruising around, standing for a second or two on his own, growling like a car or motorcycle all day long. We got him some little cars to play with and he pushes them around going, "grrrr, grrrr". He waves bye-bye to people, but only after they are already gone. He has 8 signs: cracker, milk, more, finish, dog, cereal, bye, water/book/somethingerother (we don't know quite what he means with this one) and 5 words: banana, Mama, Daddy, bye-bye, up. He is the sweetest, most well-behaved baby in the world. Ethan is always smiling and laughing. He jams on the guitars and bass with Daddy every day, singing and strumming the strings.

We are happy and well and I'll post some pictures soon so that everyone in the world can see my beautiful baby!

family history

My parents' friends filmed our family back in 1991. This is great!

Visiting the Bennion family in Utah - 1991 from Super Acht on Vimeo.