Well, I got the cowboy-
Fortunately, I did not quite get the barn wedding of my dreams (although Clark's dad did offer to have me ride in the front end loader to our Open House in Durango)...
I suppose its time to say yee-haw and hold on for the ride!
There once was a boy, with a curl
right in the middle of his forehead...
and when he was good, he was very very good
but when he was bad, he was horrid!
(Nursery Rhyme)
This morning I was trying to get ready. Ethan was bound and determined to play with my hot rollers. The only way I could contain him was to put one in his hair. It was only in for a second, but it was long enough to make a darling little curl right on top of his head. I'm thinking hold off on the haircut - his new little rooster swoop hairdo is the way to go! However, this style can only be done while his daddy is at school...I think Clark would die if he saw Ethan wearing a curler!
Don't you love his perma-grin the whole time he plays?
The Donald with his little apprentice!
So Ethan's hair is getting a little out of control. It has a mind of its own, sometimes I can slick it back and sometimes no amount of gel or hairspray can mess with the red mass. A couple weeks ago my mom pointed out that his hair looks like Donald Trump!!!
Not my cute little Ethan...but I'm realizing she may have a point. Here's some proof:
Ethan waving goodbye on our way out the door. He loves to wave to everyone now. The best is that his little hand faces himself when he waves!
On his way in his new big boy carseat!
If you look close you can see both of our Easter bunnies.
Ethan was so excited to see all of the eggs on the lawn. He was not excited to walk in his new shoes, so he gathered his eggs sitting and shot them like a basketball into his bag, poured them out and then started all over again!
In the video you can tell Clark is pretty proud of his little hoopster.
Clark and I had our first egg competition. We still have 1/2 dozen eggs left. Its not over yet baby!
Ethan going for his basket. Luckily Clark has on his Easter camouflage so no one can see him in this picture.
The joy of chocolate bunnies! The whole time he was eating he kept saying "mmmmmm" in a high little voice.
I love how he hugs his duck in this video. That is how he is with all stuffed animals, it is so sweet.
After church a family here, the Bahr's, (Clark's mom is first cousins with Brenda) invited us to join their wonderful Easter dinner. It was a feast! There was even an Easter egg hunt that Ethan participated in and a huge silly string fight (there were 24 cans of silly string used). For some reason Ethan was a little scared by the screaming, running, and huge pieces of silly string being shot at him that took place. I think that is one cool Easter tradition.
Looking like a million bucks in his new birthday outfit from Grammy. Ready for Easter Sunday. And yes the cheeping duck did come to church with us today. Ethan absolutely loves it!
What a fun holiday! Ethan wasn't old enough to really know what was going on, but definitely old enough to have fun! We loved it!
Tired boy all Easter'd out!
The church in Ploiesti where I spent my first Easter mass.
My very favorite part of the service was when the priest would take a big candle and light one person's candle in the congregation. They would then light the person's candle next to them and so on and so on. Within minutes thousands of candles were burning brightly! It was so amazing to see how fast we went from standing in the dark to standing in the light. The candles represent the light of Christ. Everyone is supposed to keep their candle burning until they get home to show how the gospel of Jesus Christ should go out into the world.
Trying to keep our candles burning on the walk home on my first Easter. Yes, I learned the hard way that you need a cup or something to catch the wax so it doesn't burn your hand.
Second Easter in Iasi. (Yes, that is Clark in the back). And yes, those plastic cups may have looked tacky but Sora Sarah and I did not get burned.
A parade that was part of the mass on that rainy night.
After church on Sunday before the feast. That wool skirt did not have much room to stretch! The young women in the ward wore traditional Romanian dresses and passed out cozonac to everyone at church.
My favorite tradition of the entire Easter week was the way people greeted each other on the streets. Instead of the usually "good day" people would say, "Isus a inviat" which means Jesus is risen! And in reply you would say "Adeverat a inviat!" Truly He has risen! I thought that was so cool to share the good news of the resurrection with everyone you met!
My second Easter Sora Sarah and I put together a play with music and everything about the life of the Savior for the Saturday before Easter. It actually turned out to be really good. This was the room for the final scene at the villa we met in for church. We tried to make a giant rock to represent the tomb...we were proud of that sad looking rock.
Today I finished making a little week long countdown to Easter (thanks to the idea I got from my friend Megan). I took 8 plastic eggs and numbered them 1-8. I put an object and a slip of paper with scriptures written on them that explains what Jesus was doing during his final week before the resurrection. The objects are just little representations of what was happening that day. I think it will be fun in years to come to read these scriptures together as a family and open the eggs up until Easter. Of course the last egg is just empty.
Ethan loves this tradition already!
What do you do to celebrate Easter?
Ethan's personal cake (for my mom)!
The birthday table ready for the party!
I made a lot of cake! I was expecting more than the 2 people that came, so we are still enjoying lots of cake and leftover Hawaiian haystacks!
Opening Presents!
Ethan with his fun new toys.
His legs are still a little too short to ride his train. I thought it was so funny how he was pushing it along in a straddle!
When I was in Romania I was invited to 2 first birthday parties. One tradition that they did was present the 1 year old with a tray of objects. Whatever the child picked represented their future life. I thought it was a fun tradition to adopt into our family...so we tried it out with Ethan.
The dollar = wealth. The heart = a life of love. The prescription bottle = good health. The book = great intellect. The bling broach = fame. The brush = good looks.
So what do you think Ethan would pick from this tray?
This video shows it!
Then we moved onto the cake! I envisioned him being so excited and sticking his face into the cake with glee! My parents were on the speaker phone and we all sang to him. (Apparently he was a little tired it was past his bedtime, he also had received his immunizations earlier that afternoon, and he's just been a little grumpier than usual since the hospital stay...not a good combo for a first birthday cake).
The look he is giving us in this video cracks me up! I think he has been able to make this face from the day he was born.
Poor kid was a little overwhelmed by the whole experience of flaming frosted sugary goodness.
We did give him the cake again today, he liked it better. Not a lot of glee, but at least a cute messy face without tears.
Hopefully we'll do number 2 better next year!
