Ethan's first kiss!!

Eric is looking on as a proud father as Ethan locks lips with an older woman, a much older woman. This is Hannah, our friends' little girl, she is 5 and Ethan is in love with her. We can already tell the Ethan has the "Nelson" gene and is going to be a heart-breaker!

My hungry hippo!

Ethan is very quickly catching on to eating real food. In fact, if Eric or I are eating and he isn't, he will sit there and watch us until we give him something to eat. Also, when I am feeding him, he gets so excited and will grab my hand and pull the food to his mouth. I can definitely tell that he is a boy and soon will be eating me out of "house and home."

What a great Dad!

This Eric pretending to be Mr. Bumbohead for Ethan. That purple thing on his head is called a bumbo and is one of the best inventions ever. It is a chair that you can sit your baby in and it helps them to learn to sit up. Ethan absolutely loves it. I have been using it since he was about 2 1/2 months old. His favorite thing is that I will sit him up on the counter while I make dinner and he just loves to watch me (don't worry, I am always next to him, so he won't fall). While I am making dinner, I give him some measuring spoons to play with and then we cook together! Sidenote: A friend is actually letting us borrow their bumbo, we would not have bought Ethan a purple one--for our next child, we will be purchasing one.

More pictures, finally!

Here is Ethan at his first baseball game. Unfortunately, it happened to be between two of the worst teams in the league-the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates!

My little sailor!

The World's tallest man

While we were in St. Louis, we went to Alton, IL the home of the world's tallest man. Robert Wadlow was born in 1918 and grew to the height of 8 feet 11.1 inches. Here is a picture of Brooke and I with him. I barely come up to his waist. At his death, he weighed 490 lbs. He was 7'4" at age 13! Here we are sitting in a replica of a chair that was made for him. I just can't imagine being that tall!!

St. Louis

Well, Ethan and I went to St. Louis the end of May and we had a WONDERFUL time. It was fun to see how excited everyone got to see Ethan. In fact I think dad was the funniest with him. He would play all of these funny games with him and then he would show him off to anyone that walked by, regardless of if he knew them or not.

The first did when we got there was Ethan got his first haircut by his uncle Aaron. Ethan did so well and didn't cry at all and he looked 'stylin' after Aaron was done. The next day we were there, we took Ethan to the zoo for the first time. I think we all enjoyed it more than he did and Brooke and Aaron had fun carrying Ethan around. We also went to see Dad at the office, because he wanted to show everyone his grandson. Here is a picture of the corn king and his future heir, the little kernel, sitting upon the corn cob!

Probably the most exciting thing we did while we were there, was to go to Cabella's!!! My dad was so excited to take his first grandson to Cabella's for the first time and even bought him a shirt to document such a momentous occasion. Here are several pictures from that trip. We had a great time trying on different hats and exploring the store. Don't worry, my dad made sure we saw every inch of the store--he didn't want Ethan to miss out on anything.

Uncle Aaron was also kind enough to buy Ethan a St. Louis cardinals outfit to go with the hat that his grandpa bought him. The St. Louis outfit is to remind him of his roots. As you can see we had a great time, especially Ethan!

Newport, RI

Eric had training up in Newport, RI the last week of May, so Ethan and I went up with him for a couple of days before we left for St. Louis. We had a ton of fun. One day we went and toured two of the mansions. It is unbelievable how ornate and massive these homes are ...and then they were only used at the most 4 months out of the year.Here is a picture of the Elms. Construction of The Elms was completed in 1901 at a cost reported at approximately $1.4 million. Here is the other mansion we toured...it is called Rosecliff. This mansion was finished in 1902 and cost $2.5 million to construct. If you have ever seen the movie "The Great Gatsby," it was filmed here.



Here I am in front of two old navy carrier on base in Newport; the navy is trying to sell them, but having no luck!

Laundry Fairy!!

I have Ethan trained so well. Here he is doing my laundry while I sit on the bed and eat bon-bons and watch my soap operas!! What a good little boy I have. I haven't quite decided what chore I want him to learn next, I am thinking I might have him clean my bathrooms!!