My little Picasso

I had big plans this morning to take Ethan to his first tumbling class. I found a gymnastic place in Albuquerque that offers a Saturday morning Parent + Toddler class and was super excited to take my little man. Well, of course, the one Saturday I actually want Ethan to wake me up at 7am (and just assumed he would), that little stinker slept in until 9am! So there went that idea, lol. We'll have to try it again next weekend (and I'll set an alarm).

So instead of tumbling, we rolled right into our weekend craft. Rolled... get it? Lol. Okay, so I found a cute idea on Pinterest (of course) and figured I'd give it a whirl. Then after we finished the formalized "craft" portion, it was all free form for Ethan and he had an absolute blast! I'd never let him play with paint at home before, but it was so much fun. I'm not sure he really grasped the whole "putting paint onto paper" concept, but he really loved holding all the paint brushes and putting paint on his thighs, lol.  All-in-all it was a great morning. :)

And here's the end result of our formal "craft" :)

Hop to it!

I've been feeling very springy this week. It all started the other day when I was at Walmart and saw all the Easter decorations/baskets out. I grabbed a few things for Ethan's basket and then some little window decals to decorate the kitchen window.  From there I had to run to the thrift store and ended up randomly finding two little adorable ceramic Easter bunnies. After that I was pretty much hooked. That night at home I went on Pinterest to research all things Easter and spring related (crafts, decorations, foods, etc.). I'm usually not a crafty person (at least, not a talented one), but this week I've been to Joann's twice. Twice. I think that's more trips than I made to Joann's all of last year. I even bought a glue gun. My own real glue gun. It was empowering. Haha. :)

So I made two things this week and am really looking forward to making something this weekend with Ethan (which, if successful, I'll blog about later).  The first thing I made was based off of this post on Pinterest:

I really liked the idea of making yarn eggs, but was less interested in the "treat" part.  So I went to Joann's and bought some really pretty multi-color yarn and a bottle of Tacky glue; then a quick trip to the Dollar Store for water balloons and I was off!  The glue/water mixture was a little messy to work with, but other than that these were suuuper easy to make.  I will say (in hindsight), I wish I had made them a little smaller for decorating purposes, but I really don't think that affected the end result too much.

Wrapped and hanging to dry

All my yarn eggs hanging in the window after drying all night

The end result after pulling the balloon out

A few hurricanes, some green grass and I now have a new Easter centerpiece for our dining table!

For my other craft I was inspired by this post on Pinterest:

I actually even stayed up until 130am last night just to finish because I was so excited about this wreath, lol. So I didn't make a Valentine's Day version of this, but I used her same design (minus the bunting) to make a more springy wreath.  Wrapping the wreath was by far the hardest part, especially considering I made a HUGE knot in my yarn (like I said, I'm not the most talented crafty person).  But I didn't let that stop me, I figured out a way around my dilemma and moved forward.

Here I am at 1130pm, spread out on the coffee table, elbow deep in rose-making (with my new glue gun!)

Felt roses

My finished wreath!  Yay! :)

I really enjoyed both crafts and am looking forward to what I have planned with Ethan this weekend.  And I also have another craft that I'm already brainstorming, but that will take a little more time and probably the purchase of a staple gun.  Big doings. ;)

Here's some pictures of my other little decorations:

My thrift store bunnies sitting on my kitchen window sill (I LOVE having a kitchen window sill!)

We got this crystal bowl as a wedding gift, but sadly it had been packed away since our wedding because we had no where to put it in DC.  Now I have it sitting on our window sill (yep, I love that thing) and put some speckled eggs in it for the season. :)

Ethan's New Savings Bank

Well, I'm happy to say by Sunday we were all on the mend. Ethan's appetite and energy were both almost back to normal and we hadn't had anyone throw up in over 24 hours. Yay! So after Matt went to his usual Sunday study session, we packed up our little family of three and made our way over to the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival. It was a close call if we were going to be able to make it at all (with all the sickness going around our house), but with everyone feeling better we figured a little outing would do our family good. It was also a gorgeous day, so after the arts and crafts festival we even took Ethan to the big playground to run around and "blow some stink off" as my mother would say.

The festival had over 200 vendors and they were each so talented in their own way. We saw a ton of artists with gorgeous wall pieces and also a lot of jewelry makers. I definitely want a piece of silver and turquoise jewelry from my time in New Mexico, but nothing really struck my fancy at the festival. However, there was one vendor that completely caught my attention yesterday. The company was The Knothole, Inc. and they make U.S. Post Office door coin banks. I'd never seen anything like these banks before (and I've pretty much grown up at craft fairs/antique stores/flea markets/etc.). Matt and I decided we had to get one for Ethan. He might be a little too young to appreciate the bank now, but hopefully when he's older he'll think it's as cool as we thought it was when we bought it for him.

So basically when old Post Offices renovate, this guy buys the doors from the mailboxes and then converts them into coin banks. He had all different sizes and different lock systems. We loved this one in particular for several reasons:  1) it had a double dial combination lock (some of them just had single dials and some had keys); 2) it had a glass window (most of the smaller ones didn't have windows on them); and 3) of course, the number!  Number 12 has a dual special meaning for us because it represents 2012 (the year Ethan was born) and #12, which was Kev's jersey number. Each bank also comes with a note stating where the particular door came from and how old the door type is.

Once we saw these banks and then found this #12 one, we knew it was meant to be, so without much hesitation, we scooped this one up and quickly took it with us to give it a new home. :) Now it's time to start filling it up!

Sick baby, sick mama

Well, we've definitely had a rough week. Be prepared this post is slightly graphic, so if your stomach can't handle vomit-talk, then you may just want to pass on reading this.

Wednesday morning Matt and I woke up to find our poor little guy in a crib full of vomit. We're not sure when he threw up, but man did he throw up. It was in the crib, out of the crib, on his jammies, in his hair. We have no idea how long he slept like that because he never cried to wake us up. :( It was so sad to find. So we instantly threw him in the tub and cleaned up his crib and he stayed home with us (as opposed to going to daycare). He was so pitiful all day and would barely eat or drink anything at all. He also had a mild fever that we were keeping track of. Wednesday night we put him to bed in his pack 'n play in our bedroom (figuring that way he'd be in our room if something happened again), and sure enough, he threw up everything again. :( Fortunately, this time we caught it *right* after it happened. So once again he stayed home Thursday (still not eating or drinking anything really).

In the middle of the night Thursday he woke up crying and had a pretty high temperature of 103+ so Friday we kept him home again and ended up taking him to the doctor. The doctor heard a lot of congestion in his lungs, so she requested a chest X-ray (Ethan's first X-ray) to make sure he didn't have pneumonia. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, but on top of the lung congestion, he also had the beginning of an ear infection. So we came home with Ammoxicillin and were hoping that was the end of it.

Well, it pretty much was for Ethan. Unfortunately, however, I woke up at 2am last night and ended up throwing up. Seems like whatever Ethan had, I inherited. But the good part is, Ethan's energy is much higher today and he's actually eating and drinking (yay!). So now I'm pitiful (but surviving) and Matt is just trying to avoid all the germs in the house.

Send us all the healthy vibes you have our way, we definitely need them!

My pitiful (yet adorable), sick little guy

Busy with the everyday

I know I haven't blogged in the last two weeks, and I don't want you to think I've forgotten, it's more just that life has been a little slow and busy all at the same time.  Matt has finally really started working a lot, which is great.  When we first got here his training had been delayed due to a lack of instructors, but now things are up and running for him.  He actually had his first checkride (aka pilot exam) and passed!  Yay!  So studying for that consumed life for awhile; then he also had to work two weekends ago.

As for me, work had a bit of a dry spell the last two weeks of February, but then over this weekend I worked almost 12 hours.  It's not ideal, but when work comes in, I take the work.  So combined with Matt working two weekends ago and me working this weekend, we haven't had a lot of time to go out and explore, which has meant no fun things to blog about.

Ethan and I did make it out to the New Mexico Flea Market at the Expo Center last weekend.  It's just like a big flea market/yardsale on the parking lot of the Expo Center that they have every Saturday and Sunday. It was nice to get out and enjoy the weather, but the flea market itself was underwhelming.  However, the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival is this weekend, which I'm excited to go to.  It's supposed to be one of the top art festivals in the nation with paintings, photography, jewelry, ceramics, wood, metal and glass art, and more.  I love that kind of stuff, even if I don't buy anything, I really enjoy wandering around and appreciating everyone's hardwork and creativity.  Plus, if there is something I like enough to buy, I love having original pieces.

Other than all of that we're just doing our day-to-day thing.  And Ethan is always growing, of course.  His first round of molars are all pretty much in and now his four canines are starting to cut through.  Poor little guy went from cutting eight teeth over about a year to now cutting another eight teeth in the last two months. He's doing great, though.  He's down to one afternoon nap and is completely sleeping through the night.  His vocabulary grows everyday, with some of his new words being "airplane," "edamame," and "octopus."  He's great at putting away his toys and using a fork.  He's also great at locating his nose, eyes, ears, mouth, legs, belly and feet.  We're working on knowing where his tongue is now, just because it's fun to see him stick his little tongue out. :)

Anyway, hopefully we'll get out and explore somewhere new this week so I'll have some fun pictures to post, but until then, here's a few pictures I took on my phone:

Cuddling on the couch, watching Tangled (Ethan's favorite movie), waiting for Matt to get home from work

Playing with his MegaBlocks construction set from Grandpa