Packing, Moving & Visit from Aunt Jenny

Well, we officially moved into our house a little under two weeks ago and are finally getting settled in here (I promise to post pictures of the house soon). We still have lots of boxes at my mom's house, but the essentials are unpacked and we love our house! Here are a few pictures of Ethan and Cara playing in the boxes while I was packing up the apartment.

We had our first visitors 5 days after we moved in! Aunt Jenny and her roommate, Helen came down for a visit from Raleigh. They went with us to baby Veeck's third ultrasound, shopped around at IKEA and even made us some homemade lasagna!

Ethan loved playing with Helen. Here they are watching an Elmo DVD.

Aunt Jenny (19 weeks pregnant) and Me (22 weeks pregnant)

Ethan driving Uncle Kevin's truck.

Ethan called it Aunt NooNee's (translation: Jenny) truck

Duck Song

Ethan's vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds. We're constantly amazed by his willingness to try new words and phrases and we celebrate his ability to learn new things. He has learned at least 6 colors, 3 shapes and can even count to ten! His words are still pretty hard for others to understand, but we know a lot of what he says. Starting school only helped his vocabulary and Ethan even started saying a few phrases that I couldn't understand because he learned them at school. A few weeks after starting school he started saying one particular phrase every day and I always meant to ask the teacher, but would forget about it when I picked him up. At his year-end school party his teacher asked me if I was able to go to her school website where she keeps links to songs and sites they use in the classroom. She said that Ethan loved the "Duck Song" and whenever he was the song picker at school, he always chose this song. We then realized what he had been saying for the past few weeks - he wanted to listen to the "Duck Song."

So, yesterday I finally took a minute to go to her website and clicked on the duck song. Ethan was across the room and as soon as he heard it his eyes got really big and he got this big smile on his face. He said, "duck song," "duck song!" He was so happy that I finally understood what he was saying! Well, lets just say that Ethan has taken advantage of our understanding a little too much this weekend. He has asked for the song so much that I know we've listened to it AT LEAST 40 times in the past two days. I want to encourage him to speak and let him know that I understand, but I think we're going to have to put a limit to the number of times we can play this song per day. Tim and I have been walking around at night after we put Ethan to bed singing it to ourselves. Go ahead, listen to it a few times and see if you don't do the same!

Ethan At School

We love Ethan's school, his three amazing teachers and three wonderful therapists. One of the many special things they do for the parents is sending home video and pictures they take of Ethan at school. A few days ago we got a flash drive full of pictures from his past month at school. Here are just a few...

Baby Veeck is a BOY!

Everything on the ultrasound looked great and he was VERY active!

We can't wait to meet you, little one! We love you already!

MckMama Photos

The whole first year of Ethan's life is a blur - and saying it was stressful just doesn't seem to express what was going on in our lives during that year. One of the things that got me through the tough times was reading blogs of other moms who were going through similar or also very tough situations. One of those was MckMama's blog (http://mycharmingkids.net). Her son, Stellan, had a life-threatening heart condition and reading her blog reminded me that I wasn't alone in my heartbreak and suffering. Now, I don't necessarily endorse or agree with all of her views or beliefs, but I do enjoy some of her original and simple recipes as well as her wonderful photography.

All that to say, a few months ago MckMama posted that she would be doing some photo shoots in the Charlotte area. Allison and I decided to split the cost and let that be our birthday presents to Ethan and Cara this year. MckMama was here a few weeks before Ethan's birthday and took a ton of amazing pictures of our family. Here are just a FEW of my favorites...