Ethan's 8th birthday

July 28th was Ethan's 8th birthday.

He was born in Boston, MA while we were living in Dedham. His is my only "normal" birth experience. Saturday morning we went for a big walk (trying to get things moving), then had Thai for lunch (trying to get things moving), put the girls down for a nap and watched Grease on TV since it was the Saturday afternoon movie on TV. Then, finally in the late afternoon things got going :D We left the girls at the Cox's and went in to Boston to have the baby.

Only problem was that by the time we went to the hospital my mom was in the air flying to Mass. She didn't have a cell phone and we weren't sure how to get a hold of her to let her know we wouldn't be at the airport to pick her up and that we were at the hospital. My sister Christie won the award for level-headedness and suggested a call to the airline in Boston. She took care of that for us (thank you Christie) and they paged my mom when she landed to give her the message to just take a taxi to the hospital.... which she did.

So.. my mom was there when Ethan was born! Something I never expected to happen always living so far from family. It was very uneventful and after 5 min. of pushing he was born at 11:45pm - 2 weeks early at a whopping 7lb 2oz.

That was the last time life with Ethan was "uneventful"

Ethan at 3 mo.
Around 3 yrs old
7 years old
Ethan is always trying to get a laugh. Most of the time this is good, but it has got him in trouble a few times too. He spends most of his days after school building and riding on his bike jump out in "the field" or collecting critters.

I was a bit sad that I didn't have more of Ethan's school pals phone #s to invite them to his birthday party, and that the people I DID know were out of town. Ethan didn't seem to mind though. He just wanted some bodies there to celebrate his birthday. I'm SO glad he is easy going that way. He was rather determined to have his birthday party ON his actual birthday though. Don't know why, but it was pretty important to him.

Here's the motley crew

Ethan had a great time at his party!

My dad had bought these noisy balloons when he was here at Christmas time and saved them for Ethan's birthday. They were a big hit.

Happy Birthday to my best boy!