Thanksgiving 1-4

Thanksgiving is a multi-day event in the Cleary household and we had 4 wonderful celebrations.

It started off a week before Thanksgiving with our small group and Natalie Johnson made an amazing complete Thanksgiving meal for our group. Very impressive.

Ethan and Emily Johnson played a great little game before the feast. Here's how it goes: Mike gives ball to Emily. Ethan takes it from Emily and throws it. Repeat.

Thanksgiving #2 was the weekend before Thanksgiving with our old college friends at the Thrash's house. We also got to meet Hazel for the first time. I ate way too much and we had a great time.

Gina with adorable Hazel Rose.Ella was in heaven when Beth let her play with Beth's makeup bag. Ella is such a lady!

Thanksgiving #3 was actually on Thanksgiving with Mike's extended family at his cousin's house. Many of them had either not met Ethan or not seen him since he was a few months old. It was a great get-together with lots of food and family.

Showing off his walking skills brought squeals of delight!

I love this picture of Deya with her brother Jorge.

I just had to add this one in. It's a picture of Mike's 2nd cousin, Will, who was "collecting dollars." He didn't do too bad. :) In case anyone read this far down, I collect dollars too!

Thanksgiving #4 was at my parent's house the day after Thanksgiving. It was as great meal and we even got some ping pong action in. Ethan didn't get much of an afternoon nap that day so my hands were a little full and I didn't get many pictures. Here's one of my uncle and my only 1st cousin, Natalia.

Why???

Why is it that Ethan starts sleeping through the night just before we head out of town? He did it last summer the night before we left for Yosemite and now here we are about to leave for Christmas. I think the difference has definitely been food this time. It's tricky to get him to eat enough solids. The books I read said he would eat what he needed. Hog wash!!! He ate like a bird and then woke up all night long. I found if I was creative with toys he would eat more. What do you know he immediately started sleeping better and now he's gone the whole night through. The irony is that when he changes his sleeping patterns to sleep longer I don't sleep as well. I woke up at 6:00 and realized I hadn't fed him. Then I'm excited and I can't go back to sleep. And so I am getting back to blogging. Sorry for the dry spell but E and I were sick at the beginning of Dec and after that all my evening time was used on Christmas projects. Are you ready for catch up time?

Just like Dad

I still need to add all my pictures from Thanksgiving but in the mean time here is one of Ethan playing piano with his dad. He's well on his way to taking after Dad in music!

Happy Tue to you!

Just a little something for you to enjoy! :)

Ethan after waking up from a 2.5 hr nap last week.

Caught them kissing!

Ethan tried to move his friendship with Laekin to a whole new level. Laekin leaned in to give him a peck and Ethan took the opportunity! Just a note: she refused to kiss him after that. :)

Ethan's buddy

Laekin and Ethan are becoming good friends as Ethan is able to engage more and more in play. The other day he was sharing his Joe's O's (Cheerios) with her by feeding them to her. She gets so concerned when he has a messy face and insists that he be cleaned up. She also has a thing about putting items on his head. He's not so excited about that part. :) I love watching them together.
Don't you just love that face! :)

Mud Mania

Here are the muddy pictures I promised:

Halloween

Halloween is in November right? Oh, I'm just a little behind on my posts :0)

Ethan was a monkey for his 1st Halloween and his suit had extra padding to go over his already nice round belly. Perfect! When we were up in SCV visiting fam I thought it would be a great idea to go to Lombardi Ranch with everyone. What could be better? Grandparents and aunts watching their adorable grandson/nephew enjoy a quaint farm for the fall. What I didn't take into account was the 97 degree weather, the fact that it was the weekend before Halloween and that Lombardi Ranch is the only cute farm around. We grew up going to this ranch and I couldn't have imagined how many people would be there. They had cops directing traffic for goodness sake! There were lines wrapped around the building to buy overpriced pumpkins! Combine all this with lots of dust and heat and it made for a miserable experience. Kim was able to take a few cute pictures and then we got out of there as fast as those cops would allow! Now I know for next year. :)

9 months

Ethan had his 9 month checkup last Monday and he weighed in at 20 lbs. He just started successfully eating Joe's O's and he has developed into a serious dancer. That is, when he hears music with a good beat he rocks forward and back with a look of concentration on his face. He wants to stand as much as possible and he is more fun with each passing day.

Ethan's Muddy Mom & Dad

Mike and I competed in the Muddy Buddy Run yesterday in San Dimas and it was awesome! A couple of months after Ethan was born Mike bought us new running shoes and we signed up for the Muddy Buddy in order to have a goal to lose the pregnancy weight. Mike's family came down to spend the day with Ethan (huge thanks!) and we loaded up in the wee hours of the morning. We first had an unplanned but satisfying breakfast at Denny's due to forgetting to turn our clocks back. We checked in at 5:30am and started enjoying the energy and excitement as all of the 1200 teams began to arrive.


In this race, the team members alternate between running and riding their bike. Mike started off on the bike, rode to a transition area, left the bike, did a small obstacle and then took off running. I started off running, reached the transition area, did the obstacle and then searched for our bike amidst the large pile of bikes. The total race distance was between 6-7 miles up and down the beautiful hills in Bonelli Park. There were five legs of the race (leg 3 was a whopper) and it ended at big mud pit that teams army crawl through together. We finished 40th out of 103 with a time of 1 hr 2 min (our category was coed with combined age of 56-65).

We had such a great time! It was very, very hard but not overwhelming. I wasn't in as good of shape as I had hoped I would be but it didn't kick my butt like I thought it might. It was so satisfying to be pushed hard and to be surprised at what my body can do. It was a blast to have this adventure with Mike and we can't wait until next year. Who is going to join us???

For those of you who want to see our muddy picture we will add it here when we get a link from Muddy Buddy. :)

Thankful Thursday

A blogger I follow started doing "Thankful Thursday" posts and I thought it was a lovely idea and good practice to be reminded of what we are blessed with.

I'm thankful for:
~A chance to see my dear friend, Jen, yesterday who just had a baby (pictures to follow). We hadn't been able to visit because of Ethan's cold and it was so good to see her. She makes a wonderful mom of two!
~Clean floors. Ethan and I cleaned the floors this morning and somehow it makes the whole house seem tidy.
~That musical laugh. I get a good dose of it when Ethan and I play the hat game. If you haven't played it, this is how it goes: I put a hat on E's head. He pulls it off and laughs. I put the hat on my head. He pulls it off and laughs even harder. Repeat. I highly recommend the game.
~"Hey Dad." Mike and I can verify that it's Ethan's new phrase. (We're practicing "Hey Mom")
~Jasmine Pearls tea from Trader Joes. It's in a cool bag and it's delightful during E's afternoon nap. Which is right now. :)
~Preparing for the Muddy Buddy Run this weekend with my husband and best friend. I love that he pushes me and that we get to do this together.
What are you thankful for today?

It's fall...kind of

Fortunately, Ethan was given some adorable sweaters that fit him perfectly right now. Unfortunately, at 96 degrees the weather felt more like mid-Aug and a sweater was the last thing you would want to wear. Fortunately, the mornings in SCV were cool and we had time to squeeze in a quick fall photo shoot. Apologies upfront for the number of pictures but you would understand if you saw how many there were.

Ethan doesn't know Sam well enough just yet...

Proud dog :)

Ok, last one.

To GG's house we go!

We packed the car and headed up to SCV last weekend to welcome my grandma (or GG, short for Great-Grandma) to her new home and visit with family. The renovations on her home turned out great and it's truly and inviting place to be. Welcome to SCV, Grandma, we are so glad you are here!!!

We helped her do a little unpacking and we came across some fun items.

I missed my Da Da

Mike worked late on Mon so Ethan didn't see him until Tue evening. It was the first time we could tell that he missed his play time with Da Da. You should have seen his face light up when Mike walked in the door. I'm sure my games loose a bit of their excitement when we play them day after day and Mike brings a fresh, new perspective.

Here is the ride on the footstool.

There's also the hit the paci and see where it lands:

Up and Down

We lowered the crib this weekend just in time for Ethan to pull himself up! Mike just so happened to catch it on the camera (which is especially good because I was in the other room).

Sitting

Knees

Reach for it

Pull up

Ta Da!