It begins...

So, Friday morning I was sitting in the living room eating breakfast, watching Ethan playing on the ground in front of me. He was up on his hands and knees, rocking like crazy, like he normally is. He has figured out the moving his legs thing, but not his arms (which means he face plants it when his knees get too close to his hands). Anyway, this morning he actually started moving his hands! He slowly lifted his arm way up high in a big circle before putting it down a few inches in front of where it had been. Then he moved his opposite knee. I yelled to Trent to come quick. As Trent ran in Ethan fell over. Luckily, he got back up to try again. This time he moved his one arm (still bringing it up high), followed by this opposite knee, followed by his other hand, you get the idea. He was crawling!! We kept moving him away from the inspire-er of this crawling, Trent's backpack, and watching him crawl forward towards it again. We were laughing and giggling like little kids. It was pretty much the cutest thing I have ever seen. I have been scared for him to start crawling for fear that I will not be able to get anything done, yet part of me wanted him to crawl because I was scared he would never figure it out! It was amazing to see that he did figure it out, all on his own. How does that happen? How do they know how to do it? I have no idea, but it is pretty cool.
Fortunately, Ethan has not figured out that he could move all around the house if he wanted to. For right now he only crawls when we set him down with everything out of his reach. Other than that he just rolls in his little five foot area like normal...so we are getting the best of both worlds ;).

Here is is just chilling in the morning, drinking his bottle, watching Trent and I get ready for the day.

Lots of learning going on around here

Ethan has started doing a ton of things this week! It is crazy how much he has grown and learned in just 9 months! I know it would be exciting if I told you that he finally learned to crawl...but I will not tell a lie. No crawling going on around here.

This past Monday Ethan started saying his "d"-sound. Now it is the sound he uses most, "da-da-da-da", I cannot wait until he finds out it means Daddy. On Thursday he turned 9 months old! Wow. These months have flown by. Trent and I were looking at pictures of Ethan as a newborn last night and oo-ing and aw-ing over how TINY he was. I feel like my little boy is all grown up! On Friday he started clapping! I have been practicing clapping for weeks with him, moving his hands together and clapping my hands, but, wouldn't you know it, he clapped first for Trent. I was getting out of the shower and Trent says: "Caitlin, come here, I taught Ethan how to clap!" As if clapping twice in front of Ethan is all there was to it! Although, with as much as he loves Trent, maybe it was!

Also, as this week has progressed, Ethan has become extremely mobile. He still doesn't crawl, but he can pull himself forward on his hands, twist his body, roll around and finally make it to where he wants to. It is so slow that you don't really realize he is moving that much, but if I walk out of the room for a minute, I come back to him in a completely different spot! It is nice to see what kind of things interest him and yet still not have to chase him around a bunch...I am scared for that day! Please let it not come until April ;).

Sleep is good

So Ethan is being a super sleeper! He has been sleeping through the night for a few nights with only tiny little relapses!

On January 11th he slept from 7:00 PM to 6:00 AM for the first time! He still wakes up sometimes for just a few minutes but not very often. Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to figure out how to sleep for that long! I kept waking up and listening for him. I would then start to worry that he hadn't woken up (which is silly because we had to let him cry it out-we KNEW he would be sleeping through the night) but I would have to go and check on him. Finally though, a week later on January 16th we both were successful, I woke up to my alarm at 6:15 and realized that I had slept the whole night! I, of course, immediately went in to check on Ethan and he was just as adorable as could be, sound asleep. It was a huge step for us both I'd say ;).

Some more. Just for fun.

I just have a few more cute pictures that I want to put on here. These are from before the break.

 Here is Ethan in his Sunday clothes. I know I am biased, but I think he is pretty adorable.

Ethan's poor cheeks. Combination cold and dry weather and loads of drool. And here they are studying. Lots of studying. And it looks like Ethan is following right along. I don't know why he would want to read about Business Strategies. He only looked up because I called his name.

 Trent is such a good dad. He does pretty much everything with Ethan.

Ethan fell asleep like this. Grabbing the side of the pack 'n play. Interesting.

The holidays are over...

Well, the break is officially over and we have been back at school for one week. At the beginning of last semester I cried every day at the thought of having to go to school AND take care of a baby. I know that this semester is going to be even harder, but for some reason it doesn't seem as scary. Maybe its because I have a whole line of people who I know will babysit Ethan for me. Or maybe it is that the end is in site. Four more months and I am done with school. Forever. Well, I can hope at least ;).

Ethan is getting so big I can hardly believe it. He turned 8 months old this past Monday. Wow. At the doctor's on Tuesday they measured him at 29 inches. That means he has grown a foot since he was born! Minha nossa. He had surgery this past Tuesday, but he is doing great. He was pretty out of it for the whole day, but on the up side he was super cuddly ;). By Wednesday morning he was laughing and squirmy again. Back to normal. We were very happy to see him recover so fast. We know that he had lots of prayers on his behalf.

 Ethan is not crawling yet. Nana taught him how to "rock" on his hands and knees over the break, so he does that pretty well, but he seems to like doing push-ups better. Or maybe he is doing downward facing dog? I wish I could ask him.

Here is Trent wresting with Ethan. Ethan is laughing hysterically. 

It must be a boy thing.

 This is their new trick. Ethan's leans forward as far as he can without falling forward. I was pretty impressed.

Christmas!!

I love Christmas. I love the singing, the lights, even the air seems different. I even accept snow during the month of December because then I have an excuse to stay inside. Makes for a pretty cozy break ;).

This Christmas was great. It was Ethan's first one. He pretty much got spoiled because he was carried and/or held the entire time ;). We spent Christmas with Trent's family in Sugar City and then traveled to Helena to see my grandma and my parents, who came down to meet us there. It was my first Christmas at BYU that actually felt long enough to count as a break. We played games, watched movies, pulled each other on tubes behind the snowmobiles, cross-country skied, ate sweets like crazy, and, of course, had some great spiritual conversations talking about our Savior, His birth, and the reason we celebrate His birth, the Atonement. We each shared a scripture about the Savior on Christmas Eve and it was a good way to think about and remember the Savior.

Here are some pictures from those few weeks:

 

This is the Christmas gift from Nana (my mom) that really motivated Ethan to sit up. Within a few days of playing with this he was a sitting up champ. He learned very quickly that when he pressed down on the red button the monkey in the tree would pop up and the toy would play music. He pressed the button over, and over, and over again. I am amazed at how smart little kids are. They must take in much more than we give them credit for.

 

I just thought this was a cute shot of Ethan wearing Daddy's hat.

 

 Three Spratling men. No real smiles from any of them. Hmmm.

 This is the adorable sleeper that Grandma Spratling bought for Ethan for Christmas. It says "Santa's Helper" on the front. It was pretty adorable. That basketball was one of Sierra's gifts. I guess she had to share with Ethan.

 Trent and Shelly (Trent's mom) bought me new stainless steel pots and pans for Christmas. They are beautiful. I am in heaven. Trent is such a boy; he wanted to see if Ethan would fit in the stock pot. Sorry Ethan, but it was pretty funny.

 We don't have a tub for Ethan at our apartment in Provo, so we this was a real treat for Ethan. He had so much fun splashing around, grabbing at the streams of water we poured in front of him. We had some good laughs. I feel bad that now we have to go back to that baby tub in Provo. Poor kid.

This is a four-generation photo with my dad and grandma. It was so nice to get to visit with her. She just thought Ethan was such a happy baby-probably because we make him nap so much! She kept saying, "he's going to sleep again?", but she was amazed that he never cried. I guess naps are the secret ;).

Thanksgiving

So, this is a leettle late, but I figure "better late than never", right? This Thanksgiving was so fun because we were able to spend time with both of our families. My parents came down and stayed at our apartment (I know, it was super crammed, but super fun-I don't let them stay at a hotel because my favorite time to talk to my mom is at night, right before bed and that's just so much easier when she is in the next room over!), but we spent the actual day of Thanksgiving with Trent's parents and family in Spanish Fork. So, not only did we not have to travel (which was AMAZING), but we got to spend a lot of time with both families. It was so fun and relaxing. I vote we make both families travel to us every year ;).

Here are some pictures of our wonderful week:

Here is the new, updated, Spratling Family picture. It turned out so good, I love it.

 

One of the first things Trent did when we got to the chapel, where we were having the family dinner, was to take Ethan and show him how to shoot some hoops. Ethan was watching intently. Very cute.

 

Grandpa and Grandma Spratling. 

I think they are pretty smitten with their favorite grandson.

He's the only one, so he pretty much has to be the favorite ;).

 My mom pretty much spent all of her time on the floor playing with Ethan and they practiced sitting up a lot. Before that Ethan's sitting up consisted mainly of the forward fold, but by the end of the week he was sitting up straight for a good amount of seconds before falling over, it was pretty exciting!