Saturday, October 29, 2011

Auntie & Ethan Day

For those of you who don't know, I have a confession. I have a nephew named Ethan Patrick, and I must confess - he is my very best friend. Not only best friend, he is the very best thing that ever happened to me. LOL. Yes I talk about him like he is my child, because there's not a whole lot of difference in the way I feel towards him if he were my own. I grew up as sisters with my cousin Karin, so naturally, what's hers is mine ;)

I could talk about Ethan for days, so I'll stop myself now because you'll get the picture as blogs go on and you see this love connection I have with him. He's quite amazing, as you'll see. 

Last year was Ethan's first real Halloween. He was born in May, so the year previous he was just an infant and really didn't know much of what was going on to enjoy it. So last year, was the first year in our "Auntie & Ethan Halloween Day". Last year we went to Fairytale Town & Funderland & then to a local Pumpkin Patch. He was just a year old but had so much fun. He looked so adorable in the Elephant costume I got him and we had the best day. Here's some pictures from our first year's trip

He was so little!!! & He could only ride about 2 of the rides there I felt so bad.
Didn't quite understand the fascination of the "Pumpkin" yet. But he tried.
Little elephant<3
THIS was the cutest part of the whole costume. His little tail ! Aw, he's so curious here I love it.
That year he was still so tiny he needed the stroller or to be carried because he'd get tired. And yes, he wasn't a fan of "cheesing for the camera" yet either. But he still had the cutest pictures :)

This year, he's two. And boy oh boy, two he is. He's so much fun & I just love how expressive & talkative he is at this age. I didn't really notice how much a year makes, until this year's trip to the pumpkin patch. For this year, we went to Bishop's Pumpkin Patch in Wheatland. & Then we came home and carved Ethan's FIRST Pumpkin. I bought a Sesame Street Carving Kit @Target a few weeks ago & just knew we'd have a really fun time with it.  I thought we'd do it big. Afterall, it is our one year anniversary of our special day together:)

As soon as I picked him up he started asking "auntie woya, we go punkin patch now?". Over & over that's all I heard until we got there. But it was so cute just because, I still cannot get enough of him calling me "auntie woya" at the start of every sentence. Melts my heart. We picked up Mcdonalds (yes I'm the irritating auntie who spoils him with chocolate milk & kids meals when I know I should be giving him healthy food) & we were on our way.   

SO MUCH BIGGER. Please, don't remind me. I'm still trying to come to grips with it.
As soon as we pulled up I asked Ethan what he wanted to do first: Pick our pumpkins, or do all the activities. He replied with "um.. lets do activities, then pick punkins last". So there it was; Our Itinerary for the day. Bishop's was so great, especially for kids. Between the candy stores to train rides to acres of pumpkin patch to pick (after the big tractor drives you out to the fields of course) and countless things for kids to do. To put it lightly, Ethan had a blast. First things first, he wanted to fill his bucket from Mcdonalds (which he decorated with their stickers on the way - thanks Mcdonalds for his car-ride-entertainment!) Then our day of activities started. From "choo choo twain" rides to "ice-creeam" to "auntie woya take picture of that" - all the way to spending over an hour in the pumpkin patch picking the perfect pumpkin that was up to Ethan's standards (he's pretty picky I'll say) - the day was completly full of fun.

Picking out his candy! Gave him a bucket and he was off. Even picking candy out for daddy & mommy :)

YES - he LOVES posing for the camera now & everything is "take picture... I wanna see!" It's so awesome. And makes photo memories that much more fun to look back on :) This is him and his bouncy ball he picked out at the Candy Shop. He seen this truck and said "that's big truck like my daddy's - take a pictwure"

Corn maze!! We bought our tickets and he lead us through the whole thing. It made for a bit of a longer maze than expected, but he had fun getting lost & us found in the big "forest". He even threw a couple cornstocks (little rebel)

LOL! Had to.

This is my most favorite picture of the entire day. I didn't even say smile or cheese. We got seated in our seats for the train ride around the Pumpkin Patch and this was his reaction to hearing the train start. Um, can you say Priceless.

This was him directing me to the prettier pumpkins because that one was "ugly". You can already see how much more fun he had this year with the Pumpkins than last year. We spent close to 2 hours finding the perfect pumpkin for him, but he was quite happy when he found it :)

There it is! "That's the one" He said. & I (while totally struggling) carried it to the tractor and we took it to our car :)

This is our tractor ride back to main part of the park. He was so proud sitting with his pumpkin. Then, it wasn't so much about the pumpkin patch as it was about when we got to carve it

LOVE that he poses!

He couldn't stop laughing at this picture when he seen it. "I ride big bus, see" <3
After our long day at Bishop's, we loaded up the car with our Pumpkin (and 7 little ones we bought up front because they're hand-picking was far better than ours), our gallon of apple cider (BEST part of Pumpkin Patches I say!) & our treats & goodies - and we were on our way home. Oh yeah, this was about 5 minutes after buckling him up. We didn't even make it out of the parking lot before I looked back and seen this sweet face.
Once we made it through traffic and got back to my house, Mommy was off work and met us there to watch us carve our pumpkins! I got our matching Skeleton aprons (Thank you $1 store for hooking us up with cutest Carving apparel ever!) and we were on our way. Now, this was the first Pumpkin I've cared in close to 10 years, and first solo - so, that being said, I think we did a pretty good job :)

Kids & Adult Skeleton Aprons for $1 - CANNOT top that :)


He was pretty proud of himself when he pulled that out (No one ever needs to know we loosened it for him)
Once he wasn't grossed out anymore by the "guts" he was all for it !
My little helper :) He seriously held his finger on the cutter the whole time and just followed my hand as I carved it. It was pretty stinkin cute, I must say.
Elmo!!! This is Ethan's most FAVORITE character! I tried to convince him to do the Cookie Monster (because I really wanted to carve the little cookies on the side) But - his pumpkin, his rules. It's really dark but can you see how happy he is with it? He was so proud of it once we lit the candles.
 And there it was. The most fun day I've had all year long. And in one day I realized how much a year really makes in little kids. They grow so fast & sometimes we get so busy and things get so normal, we forget how far they've come in such a short time.. That being said,  I'm so excited to see what our day is like next year. But then again, let's not get ahead of ourselves. As is, he's growing up too dang fast!


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