For those who don’t know, Greta and I picked a different animal for each of the kids and took a monthly picture with them next to their animal. Now that they’re all older, we’ll just be doing it yearly, but here are pictures of the three kids, through the months and years:

Corinne’s Bunny Shots
Mason’s Monkey Shots
Ethan’s Elephant Shots

Crazy!

In case you live out of state, let me give you an idea of what is happening in the Buckeye State. We have been literally buried in snow. Friday Tony decided to work from home to beat the storm. That was a good choice. By 3:30, the streets near our house were covered in thick ice. The snowy ice pellets/snow never stopped coming until near 6 pm on Saturday. I thought I heard we topped out around 15ish inches?!!? We had drifts that were over the kids’ heads. That leads to conditions like these (taken a few hours before the snow finally stopped):

Our view when we opened the garage door

The front walk

Of course the kids had to get in on the action:

Mason was excited to help Tony “shobel” the snow.

Isn’t this awesome? The kids didn’t even need a hill for sledding! They just used the bank of snow from shoveling the drive. Ha!

It also seemed a good time to introduce Ethan to snow. He kept crawling to the window to look at it, so I decided to bundle him up and go outdoors. He had socks for mittens with his hand left inside his sleeves. Two pairs of socks and boots. By the time I was done, all I could think of was Randy–”I can’t put my arms down!”

Another Christmas Story quote: “He laid there like a slug. It was his only defense.”

They didn’t last too long. The wind was really whipping around out there. They left their clothes in their wake and ran to the kitchen for some hot chocolate. Ethan crawled over to play with the little chunks of snow that came off of the boots.

Church has been cancelled for tomorrow. There is honestly a few feet of snow blocking the end of our street thanks to the many passes by snowplows. Not sure when we’ll get dug out. Meanwhile we have kids to entertain.

Ethan is bored, too. Can you tell he’s teething?

Ethan also turned six months at the end of January. He is getting around the house with ease doing the army crawl and is starting to get the hang of real crawling. He is as cute as ever. We finally had to give him his first haircut. It was scary but looks way better than the long, wispy look he had going.

Mason is starting to understand birthdays and answers with the correct age and date when you ask him about it.

As always, there are more frequent updates on Greta’s website. Feel free to check it out!

Ethan is growing like a weed. He actually slept from about 10 until close to 8 o’clock this morning. Yipee! He is also working on sitting up. He slowly bends in half and falls over. No signs of crawling yet, but he rolls around and scoots some. He’s never in the same spot when you come back to where you left him. The smiles are huge and plentiful. The kids are really good at getting him to giggle. Here’s some pictures:

I think Ethan looks alot like Lance did as a kid in the last picture.

If you live close, you had better come and visit before he’s all grown up!

The turkey is going into the oven soon. Can’t wait to smell it cooking! All the best to you and yours!

Thanksgiving was spent with both sides of the family. The kids love seeing cousins and all the extra attention. We are planning on staying home for Christmas so it was nice to check in with everyone. We are inviting any- and everyone to Columbus, though!

Check gisforgreta.com in the next few days for updated Ethan pictures. He turned four months old today!

Click here to

Ethan at two months:

The Betts’ Trip to Ohio (Apple Festival, Ethan’s Blessing, The Zoo and all around fun):

Corinne also started preschool this past week. She modeled her backpack for everyone:

She sure is a cutie!