Birthday Boy!

One year ago today, Ethan joined our family. It has been a great year as we've been able to watch him grow and see his personality develop. It's crazy to think that the chunk we see today was a little peanut who once weighed just shy of 7.5 lbs. Ethan continues to be a well behaved baby outside of the home, while at home he likes to show his true colors (lucky us).

Ethan knows what he likes and what he doesn't like, so here's a little list of what Ethan loves:
-Pointing and smiling at other kids
-Eating what we're eating (including sips from Ben's chocolate milk...start 'em while they're young)
-Pulling himself up on anything and climbing stairs
-Being held by mom or dad
-Baths
-Swinging
-Animal crackers and yogurt melts
-Sipping out of straws and making a satisfied "ahhh" sounds when he's done

And here's a list of what Ethan hates:
-Being laid down for diaper changes
-Getting his face wiped after he eats
-Being put down after being held for any amount of time
-When we force him to walk while we hold on to his fingers
-Whole milk in a sippy cup (very frustrating when you're trying to ween)
-Waking up alone in his room in his crib

All those dislikes will hopefully change to likes sometime soon. All in all, Ethan is amazing, and we are so happy to have him in our family.

Now to the celebrations... we woke up early this morning (Ethan's choice) to go downstairs to find one of his new presents. A Rock 'n' Roll trike. Ethan's legs are a little short for the time being, but he likes it anyway. It's a shame that the body of the bike is purple. Both Ben and I thought it would be royal blue from the pictures on the box.


Next Ethan and I went to playgroup where we enjoyed the sunshine with other kids and Moms. Ethan had a couple rice krispy treats, but not too many so as to not spoil his sweet tooth for cake later on .

Speaking of which, this cake defeated me. It's a Mudrick tradition to make this chocolate cake on birthdays, which I have never attempted to make before... and with good reason. I consider myself to be quite handy in the kitchen, but maybe cake making just isn't my thing. I made the cakes last night, and I had to bake them longer than what was instructed because they looked all soupy. Finally after they were done I cooled them overnight, which may have been a mistake. This morning when I went to take them out of the pans, half of the cake stuck to the pan and the remainder tore and fell apart... even though I greased and floured the pans. Boo. Then the fudge icing was tricky since when I tried to frost the cake it would harden immediately making the end result very unattractive. At least it tasted good though.


Before our dinner of hot dogs, potato salad and fruit salad we let Ethan open up his gifts. Wooden blocks and some wooden fruit. Lucky guy huh! After dinner we prepped Ethan for what we were sure would be some Kodak moments. We got my Mom on Skype and chatted with her and had Ethan blow out his candle. We then stripped him down so he could chow down on some cake and ice cream. Ethan didn't devour the cake or destroy it like I had hoped. He kind of poked around a little bit, and mostly took bites of it when we fed it to him. When we gave him a spoon he insisted on feeding it to us instead of eating it himself. He was TOO clean for me, so I ended up kind of smearing some cake and ice cream on him which he didn't seem to mind too much. Afterward he got a nice bath and spent some quality time with Dad while I went to Young Womens.








What a day. What a boy. What a birthday boy. We love you Ethan and can't wait for all the future May 19th's where we get to celebrate you!