Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone, next stop Christmas

       Ethan is now done with his second Halloween and Thanksgiving season, and although he is still too young to fully appreciate the actual holidays themselves, he appreciated the time spent as a family, and the fun activities that went along with these days. In the last few months, he has really turned into a full blown toddler. He loves to run outside and explore the neighborhood. He has been running flatfooted in the past few days (he is a toe-walker) and we realized that he has an even faster gear. He has quite the fascination for the cats, especially the fat and not-so-elusive Gypsy.
     Although he still isn't talking, his receptive language is developing very well. His vocalizations are more and more abundant, and he has dozens of words that he understands very well. Although we are getting some speech therapists to work with him, we are pretty sure that he will just start talking one of these days and never stop. This is common among boys, especially when they walk early. Apparently the brain concentrates more on the developments of his motor skills, which makes sense. He was saying some words, but as soon as he started walking, he stopped talking.  One of these days soon, he will stop mommy and daddy's worrying and start talking soon.

     Halloween is a great time of year, especially on the street that we live on. Not only do we have neighbors that fully embrace the spirit of Halloween, our neighborhood is teeming with kids, which makes for an exciting night of trick or treating. We all dressed up and joined in the fun. Mommy and Daddy were skeletons, and Ethan was....of course....Yoda. Although we thought that wearing the Yoda ears wouldn't fly with him, he did endure the costume for most of the night.

     We all spent Thanksgiving in Maryland this year. We've started the tradition of spending the major holidays at home now. We think it's important that Ethan spends Thanksgiving and Christmas in his home. The only bad part is that our whole extented family lives hours away, so we don't get to see anyone. However, our neighbors are really great, and invite us into thier homes, which makes these holidays very special. We have become the Thanksgiving nomads who wander from house to house, eating free turkey and pumpkin pie. Perhaps next year, Daddy will finally break down and cook a turkey.
     It's now approaching December, and Ethan is preparing to experience his second Christmas. He was still so young for the first Christmas, and we did so much traveling, that the whole thing was a blur for everyone. This year, Mommy and Daddy are gettin off the road and spending Christmas at home for the first time in 9 years. We have a perfect spot for he tree, and a trainset that Grampa Litsch got for Mommy when she was a baby.  Grammy and Uncle Joe are planning to come down, and hopefuly Grandpa will make the trip down as well. We are all going to Jersey the week before Christmas so we can spend some time with the Shannon clan, Grammy, Poppy, Uncle Keith, Vicki, Krista, Jenna and Ciara.