The Answer is ...

Mr. Incredible!

Guess Who!

Who do you think Ethan is pretending to be in this picture?

Camping With Ethan

Last weekend Kyle and Grandpa Morrey took Ethan out for his first camping that didn't take place in someone's backyard. We tried to get Ethan excited by telling him that he would be having a picnic, going on a hike, eating s'mores, sleeping in a tent, and whatever else we could think of.

Ethan loved our picnic...
...and our hike. During our hike, Ethan kept saying, "This is a great trip!" ...

...but sadly, we didn't have anything to make S'mores with. Fortunately, Ethan was so ready to go to bed at the end of the day that he didn't even care.

Saturday morning we had our breakfast around the camp fire. Ethan saw other kids playing with sticks in the fire and ran off into the forest (or jungle, as he liked to call it). He came running back a minute later carrying two little sticks, no more than four inches long. He tried to play with them in the fire, but quickly realized that they wouldn't work so he ran off again and came back with a reasonably sized stick. He poked at the fire for a few minutes, and then realized that Dad didn't have a stick. He ran off again and came back with another four inch stick for Dad. Silly kid.

For the majority of our trip, Ethan was pretending to be one of The Incredibles. This tunnel we found was just like the tunnel on the movie, and Ethan loved walking through it.

We were getting ready to go home, but Ethan didn't want to leave. He decided he would sit on the big rock by the side of the road, but...

...he tripped and bonked his head on one of the more jagged pieces. The wound wasn't too bad and clotted all by itself within a few minutes.

One of Ethan's newer personalities is Mr. Incredible's super-hero friend, Frozone. He loves to run around "icing" things. (for anyone who is concerned about his accident from the camping trip, you can see in the following picture taken a week later that it is not very big, and is healing nicely.)

Sadly, we don't have any pictures of Brooklyn this week. She's been expanding her vocabulary like crazy. Yesterday we were walking down the isle in a store and to our suprise she started saying "princess" and pointed to a picture of a Disney princess. She can also say "Buzz," "Woody," "Syndrome," "Super Why," "cereal," and she'll try to repeat pretty much anything we ask her too.

Not only is she saying new words, she actually using them to communicate. For the last while, we'sll walk into her bedroom and she'll say, "up." After picking her up she said, "diaper." She lets us know when she wants milk, cereal, shoes, dressed, chips, etc. It's so nice to know what she wants.

Copy Cat

Our last post featured Ethan showing off his muscles and whistling. Since then, Brooklyn has started imitating him. Here's what we've captured on video. Of course, she saves her best performances for when the camera is turned off.

Last weekend we found these stinkin' cute costumes at a yard sale. Brooklyn doesn't know what a skunk is, so we told her she was a kitty. She meowed and refused to take the costume off.

Now Ethan has a real Mr. Incredible costume. He loves to be Mr. Incredible, but sometimes he insists that we call him Bob instead (Bob Parr is Mr. Incredible's alter ego FYI). He also likes to be Dash and Elasti-girl (or Mrs. Incredible or Helen).

Ethan doesn't usually like princess cartoons too much since they're for girls, but he's really enjoyed Princess and the Frog. He loves it so much that some days he dresses up as Princess Tiana and sings along to the music. This sure will be fun to show the girls he dates in the distant future.

It has been very hard to keep track of what to call Ethan. In the last week, he's been Mr. Incredible, Dash, Mrs. Incredible, Frozone (Mr. Incredible's friend), Princess Tiana, Handy Manny, Bob the Builder, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, The Man in the Yellow Hat, Curious George, Super Why, and each of the four Imagination Movers (from the Disney Website).

We caught a few of these personalities on video:

The other day we were having a nap on the couch while Ethan was watching Curious George on the computer. A few minutes later Ethan woke us up when he ran in from the other room proclaiming, "I'm Curious George." We were shocked to see that he was completely naked.

Brooklyn has gotten really verbal lately. She loves to practice her animal noises. She can do a doggy, kitty, horse, sheep, pig, duck, baby chick, dolphin, and a few others. The other day Jen caught her playing with her food while she was sitting in her high chair. She had her sippy cup tipped over, and had her graham cracker riding on it like a horse and she kept saying "Neigh, neigh, neigh..." A few minutes later, she was pushing the cracker around the tray sayin "choo choo, choo choo." More recently, she had a piece or orange and was making it quack. It looks like both our kids have vivid imaginations.

This morning, we were getting ready for church. Kyle was shaving, and Ethan walked in and said, "Why does Daddy have glue on his face?" Then he walked into the other bathroom where Jen was appling her eye-liner and asked "Mom, is that one of my pencils? Are you writing on your face?" Kids are funny.

Secret Identities

Brooklyn is growing up so fast! She has recently started saying so many more words, including grandma and grandpa, nose, eyes, eye brow, ears, hair, etc. I made these korker bows for her this week. and she had fun modeling for me the other day. She is going to be 18 months old next week! We are so excited to send her off to nursery. We hope she transistions well to it. We think it is funny that when Ethan went to nursery, I was 6 1/2 months pregnant with Brooklyn. It will be nice to have more of a break at church this time around (that is if the kids cooperate).

Ethan has ceased to be "Ethan" this week. For a few days he insisted that his name was "Woody." Now and for the last few days he corrects us when we call him "Ethan" and says he is "Mr. Incredile." Kyle is "Dash," Brooklyn is "Violet," and I'm "Elasti-girl" or "Mrs. Incredible." If we make the mistake of using any of our real names he corrects us. I found a mask you could print out on the Disney website and he has insisted that he wear it all Friday and Saturday. Thankfully, he has a very vivid imagination - any shirt with red on it can be his Mr. Incredible shirt, and his blue jeans became "red pants" for his outfit. We went to Gardner Village and WinCo on Friday and he got lots of attention.

As you know, Mr. Incredible is very strong. Here's a video of him showing off his muscles!

We met Grandma Taylor and Emily and Daniel at Gardner Village where Grandma surprised him with a stick horse that she found at the DI. Miraculously he transformed back into Woody for an hour or so. He loves "Bullseye," his horse.

Once again he became "Mr. Incredible" and played the part while helping Mom and Dad work in the garden on Saturday. He was a bit disappointed that we didn't let him wear his mask to bed or to church today, but he has continued to play the part nonetheless.
Random tidbits:

We think it is funny that whenever Ethan sees the box of ice cream cones we often purchase from Walmart he looks at the back and says, "I want to watch that movie!"

Ethan doesn't like the idea that he was ever a "baby." According to him, when he was in diapers he was "still a big boy" and when he was in mom's tummy he was "a big boy." Brooklyn according to him is still a "baby" thought he admits that she is getting bigger.

This week our little boy learned how to "whistle" too. He copies Dad by putting his fingers in his mouth to make it very loud. Here's a video.

Star Command

For the last few days Ethan has been pretending to be Woody. If we call him Ethan, he corrects us and says, "No, I'm Woody." He has been calling Kyle "Buzz", me "Jessie," and Brooklyn "Bo Peep."

Yesterday, while I was saying our lunch prayer, Ethan tried to interrupt when I talked about Daddy at work. When I was finished, he wanted to say his own prayer. It went something like this:

"Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for our blessings. We thank you for this food. Please bless this food. Please bless Buzz to have a good day at Star Command. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen."

He's has been dressing like Woody at all times and even insists he sleeps with his hat, vest, star, and boots on his feet. We love our boy!

Grandma Got Run Over by a Muskrat

Earlier this week Jen had to go to a "meeting" (that's where we tell Ethan Mom is going whenever she goes anywhere by herself) and Kyle took the kids on a walk to a local park. Ethan has such a vivid imagination. We were two doors down from our house, and Ethan decided that he would be Woody and Dad would be Buzz Lightyear and Brooklyn would be Jessie (the yodeling cowgirl). Then he said he was going to ride RC (the toy car from Toy Story), reached into the basket of the stroller, and pulled out an imaginary RC car. He rode the car for a few more houses until he decided he wanted to fly. He put the car back in the stroller, and started flying down the sidewalk.

Our destination for this walk was a small nearby park that we don't usually go to. This park has a couple of raccoon toys for the kids to ride. Ethan was excited to jump on (as Woody) and ride his horse, Bullseye. Brooklyn had fun too.
This weekend, we went up for a late Easter/birthday party with Kyle's extended family in Brigham City. Grandpa Morrey brought his horses to give the kids a ride. Ethan said that he wasn't big enough to ride the horses. Once Brooklyn got on she didn't want to get off!

Both Ethan and Brooklyn loved riding the 4-wheeler's up and down the dirt road. Ethan kept shouting things like "This is so fun," and "Rock and Roll!" (Anyone familiar with the Bob the Builder cartoon will recognize that this is Scrambler the 4-wheeler's catch phrase)

Another highlight of the trip was when the dog ran up to the party with a freshly killed muskrat in his jaws. He chased Grandma Morrey around the 4-wheeler a few times before running off to show the everyone else. We really wish we would have gotten a picture of that.

And now, a few miscellaneous things:

Brooklyn has started saying "Ethan" and "Brooklyn." Ethan is "Eth" and Brooklyn is "Broo" (pronounced as if she is going to say it correctly, but leaves off the "klyn"). We bought some Blue's Clues Luv's diapers the other day and she loves to point to the picture of Blue (the dog) and say "Blue." She's been trying to emulate whatever we say instead of just ignoring us.

For the last couple of months, whenever she sees or hears anything that has to do with Elmo she sticks out her tongue and says, "la la la la" as if she's singing "Elmo's Song."

We've discovered a great trick to get Ethan to do what we want when we want him to, whether it's getting him ready for bed, finish eating his dinner, or get ready to leave the park without an argument. We show him the clock and say, "Right now the clock says 6 - 2 - 1. When the clock says 6 - 3 - 0, it's time to . . ." He agrees, continues doing what he's doing, and then when it's time we show him the clock again and say, "Ok, now the clock says 6-3-0. It's time to . . " and he's ready to go. Works like magic.