I think that balloon is gonna land here... (runs and gets camera)

Jody had come home a bit early from her rotation at the hospital and met Ethan and I in the dining room.  She said "Did you guys see what is out side?"  We were both intrigued and said "no" with a smile of excitement.  We went outside to the field behind our house and saw a brightly-colored hot air balloon not that far in the distance.  I watched it grow bigger and bigger quite quickly.  Jody looked at me and asked if I thought it was going to land here.  I said "yep" and began running into our house to grab the camera.

The landing of the hot air balloon in Sachem field was a public event is the oldest sense of that word.  Many people just walked out of their yards and playgrounds and made an impromptu procession to the touchdown site.

As an added bit of fun, the balloon touched down RIGHT in the middle of the end of a middle school soccer practice, so one of the people who were helping tear down the balloon spent the entire time making sure middle school soccer cleats did not trample holes in the some-odd thousand dollar balloon fabric.

Also, if you will notice, Ethan was so excited about the event that he didn't even have time to get some underwear or pants on.  It was freezing, but hey, there was a BALLOON landing in our back yard.

Our Little Garden

Ethan and I spent much of our summer tending to our little garden (read: a series of potted plants in our front yard). Below is a progression of photos from the beginning of summer to the end of fall.

Ethan and I potting the first set of seedling in flats.

Ethan helping me do some transplanting after we got the seedlings to take to the outdoor sun.

Once transplanted, the plants spent most of the summer out in our front lawn arranged like this.

After getting the plants in the right sized pots, they really grew quite well.

Our first tomato... we didn't have a great harvest (there were certainly more tomatoes than this one) but we enjoyed what we did grow very much.

Our bounty of green peppers (brought in right before the first frost, which was quite early this year)

Pots washed and stacked, as they dry to be put away for next year.

Black Paint, Black Hands

As noted in previous posts, Ethan LOVES working with tools. After we took apart a small book shelf we inherited from some friends that moved, I made a little "work board" for Ethan out of the leftover shelves. Ethan would spend lots of time putting screws or pounding nails into his work board. But, as the work board was made of particle board (read: sawdust and glue), it did not survive long. AND it was hard to get screws to really dig into it. SO, when we were having a cook out with our friends Emma and Tommy (who happens to be a wood worker), I picked up a few scraps of pine from their porch for Ethan to work with. A few days later (when he finally had the chance to dig in) he was focused like a laser beam (thanks Mark Minnett for the phrase) for about 45 minutes painting on of the scraps black. He did an amazing job, and was pretty proud of himself -- I was, too.

Sure, he was excited about the board, but he was REALLY excited about his nearly all black hands. He insisted I take a picture of them.

OMG - Do you see that Train!?

Way back in the beginning of Winter, when we trying to get Ethan to want to poop on the potty, we used a sticker chart as motivation. Each time Ethan went #2 on the potty, he would get a sticker to put on his sticker chart. After 8 stickers, he would get a BIG treat. In made the chart myself on Photoshop and it had a picture of the BIG treat right on it... A BIG TRAIN. That's right, we made an agreement with Ethan that if he made poop on the potty 8 times, he would get to ride on the big train.

It took Ethan a while to earn his first 2 or three stickers and then he went a few months with no sticker earning, and then all of a sudden, he was a pooping machine and the sticker chart was soon filled. We had learned though, that the BIG train we had planned to take Ethan on, only runs in the later summer into the fall. So, we had a lot of waiting to do. The day finally came, we invited our friends Emma, Maisie, and Patrick along for the ride. Ethan's expression above, says it all. "Is that the big train, papa?"

We rode the train the few miles from White River Junction to the Montshire Museum (where we had seen the train the year before and hatched our plan). It was a little bumpy (and a little crazy), but a good time was had by all.


After a good 1.5 hours of playtime at the Montshire, we heard the train's loud whistle and headed back down to the platform to ride back to the station (and our cars).

After we detrained in White River Junction, Ethan went running around the rail yard looking at all of the trains and railroad machines. He would have crawled up underneath one of the engines if I hadn't stopped him -- he just wanted to see how is works. Even the promise of ice cream was not strong enough to lure Ethan away at first, but he eventually came.

After the train trip was finally over and we left the train station, we popped over to the Dairy Twirl for a little ice cream. Ethan got to use the free ice cream cone coupon that he got from the summer reading program we did at our local library. It was a tiring but a great day.

Homemade Muffins

Ethan has been taking imitative play to the next level lately and has been wanting to not just play like I have been playing, but wants to actually do what I am doing right beside me. Earlier this week, I was making dinner and Ethan wanted to bake some muffins... some "real muffins.... with lots of and lots and lots of different ingredients." I set him up with a muffin tin and a handful of spices from the spice cabinet (he focused mainly on Cinnamon). He even put them in the oven, checked them, decided that they were not done, put them back in oven, and then finally brought them out and declared them done. He was very proud.

... ended in Ethan's first Electric set.

Months ago, I had come across this electric kit at the local cool kids toy store at the mall. It has big chunky pieces (for little hands) and used snaps to connect everything. I tucked it away in my head and said "when he is ready, this will be his."

After his coming up with the idea for a merry-go-round with a motor, batteries, and a switch on his own, I decided that it was time for the snap electric kit (Snap Circuits). I went to the store when he was at the Red Room, but alas, the store had sold out. Not to worry, Amazon.com had plenty in stock. A few days after I ordered it, it arrived, and one day after nap, Ethan and I opened it up and began playing...

What began with a Merry-Go-Round...

About 2 weekends ago, Jody and Nana took Ethan to a small town traveling fair in Nowrich, VT. It was not publicized online at all, there was just a bunch of rides in the school grounds and a sign out front. Anyway, Ethan had a blast! The two highlights were eating popcorn and riding on a Merry-GO-Round that had "Cool Cars" on it. He rode it twice... once in a FIRE TRUCK.

In the days following the ride on the merry-go-round, Ethan told me that he wanted to build a merry-go-round. He kinda mentioned something about a motor and a switch, but I disregarded it. So, with a little team work, we made the model merry-go-round below.


It turned out that Ethan was quite disappointed with this merry-go-round and wanted one with a motor, batteries, and a switch. I said that I had gotten rid of my box of out electrical parts a while back (which I thought I had). Ethan told me it was in the storage space.... I trudged out there, and LO, and behold, there is was -- chuck full of wires, plugs, switches, and a few left over motors from taking things apart. So, again, with some team work, we put together a new merry-g0-round. (see below)



Needless to say, Ethan loved it and played with it for several days (it is still in the "active play" pile of stuff). He liked to take little things, put them inside the merry-go-round and watch them spin to the edges. Out merry-go-round, goes a lot faster than a standard one that "little guys" ride on.