The Life and Times of Ethan Andreas Stoddard

Fun at the Park!

2011-04-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

Ethan and mommy have been spending alot of time together but even more so since daddy has been sick! We've gone to alot of different parks in Budapest. Here is a video of Ethan going down the slide at the park up the block from our apartment. He now likes to go down on his belly. He loves to climb the stairs and get to the top. After he slides down and hits the ground, he's up climbing the stairs to do it again.

Ethan paints the town...

2011-03-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

Ethan went to his first ever paint class in Hungary. As per his usual active self, he was more interested in showing off to the little girls in the class, demonstrating how he could run and climb and jump and his many other impressive (for a 1 year old) skills. Unfortunately the little girls were more interested in the painting, but Ethan continued to try. He also found it strange that while Mama is always trying keep him out of dirt and cleaning his hands, suddenly she was throwing him into it and wanting him to enjoy being dirty. It just didn't seem to make any sense to him. And what was up with all those colors anyway?? Overall he had a blast though and we will have to wait a bit longer before his artistic (genius?) side reveals itself.

For more photos from Ethan's first paint class, follow this link

Eger home of the Bikaver! (Bull's Blood Wine!)

2011-03-12T04:07:00.000-08:00

Daddy and Ethan at the Castle Gate

After a nice sleepover at Endre and Maki's we went home packed our bags and headed to Eger for a long holiday weekend (March 15- Independence Day in Hungary). We got there in the evening and checked in. Daddy was interested in seeing the Valley of Beautiful Women, but alas there were none there, except for mommy! Mommy and Daddy tried many of the Eger Bikaver wines, Ethan at times felt left out so we gave him a finger full to try. We strolled around the city and Ethan chased the birds in the park. We visited the main church in Eger, the castle and it's surroundings.

Ethan got his first taste of Hungarian ice cream "fagylalt" and absolutely loved it. Rick got sick on our last day and mommy and Ethan made a midnight run to the pharmacy for some Panadol and antinausea medication which ended up being benedryl! Our trip back on the train was alittle hectic as Ethan wanted to explore the entire train. He befriended a little Hungarian girl who played with him and watched Toy Story in english with him.

For more pics of our Eger trip click here

The sleepover! The Banana project

2011-03-11T03:32:00.000-08:00

Ethan got to hang with his buddy Ezra at St. Istvan Park. They played in the sandbox, on the swings, and on the slide. Afterwards we headed back to Endre and Maki's for a delicious dinner prepared by Chef Maki. We hung out till late and slept over. Ezra gave Ethan his crib. In the morning Ethan discovered the delicious taste of the banana. He ate about 4 of them for breakfast and another 3 throughout the day. We couldn't stock enough bananas for him. He was going thru them like water, I was convinced he'd turn into a monkey! BTW, the monkey pj's were totally coincidental.......or were they?

For more pics of Ethan and Ezra click on this link

Apu's Birthday Party

2011-03-10T03:13:00.000-08:00

Ethan got to play with Sarah and Lulu again at Apu's Birthday party. They were so happy to see each other again. He played peek-a-boo with Lulu and he devoured the delicious birthday cake Anyu made. He tried to go for seconds but managed to take some of mommy's cake instead.

For more pics of the birthday party click on this link

Pasha visits

2011-03-09T03:09:00.000-08:00

One of mommy's closest friends from when she lived in St. Petersburg, Russia came to visit us in Budapest while on bussiness. We got to hang out with Pasha one evening in our neighborhood. We took him to this cool wine bar or "borozo" just down the block from us. Ethan was such a good boy, he hung out with us and then fell asleep. As you can see, he and the binkie are inseparable, much to mamma's dismay.

For more pics from Pasha's visit and the following day click on this link

Meeting Sarah and Lulu

2011-03-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

We where so excited for Ethan to meet Sarah and Lulu, Adrienn and Tamas' daughters. We went over to their house for dinner and Ethan immediately took a liking to both girls. It was so heartwarming to hear them calling his name while they all played. Ethan and Sarah enjoyed pushing each other around in the play stroller. There was so many giggles and laughs. Ethan had a blast. When we were getting ready to leave he started to get upset and signed "more, more". It was so cute. While on our way home he begged us to get him a sibling so he could push them around in a stroller. We told him he'd have to wait a little while...........he said he'd give us a week. He's so patient!

For more pictures click on this link

On our way to see Daddy!

2011-02-26T04:40:00.000-08:00

This was Ethan's first international trip. He was such a sport. He slept for about 5 hours on the first flight and then slept the entire flight from Heathrow to Budapest. When we got to the airport, Daddy was there with Adrienn. Ethan immediately recognized daddy and went to him. Daddy was so surprised at how much luggage mommy packed (thank you Yiayia for helping mommy pack so efficiently!

Ethan on the plane

For more pics of our trip so far with videos and all
click on this link

First Feedings

2010-05-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

When we finally sat Ethan down to start solid foods, he went through the whole gamete of emotions. First there was the typical...

What the hell was that??

However, once he realized what he was supposed to do, he couldn't get enough!! We had to practically hold him down because he would lunge for the spoon and try to jab it in his mouth. This ended up being the most difficult part of the feeding, just keeping hands off the spoon.

Eventually he learned to sit back, relax, and to enjoy just letting the food come to him. You can't get much better than that!

For more photos from Ethan's first few feedings, follow this link.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'.... Keep those babies rollin'...

2010-04-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

One of our jobs as first time parents is to keep a keen eye on those ever-so-useless "milestones". Although, we understand that they are general guidelines and every baby progresses at their own speed, there is still a difficult-to-control desire to see Ethan hit those milestones on time. As such, we have been eagerly awaiting Ethan's fourth month so that he could start rolling over. So we had the calender marked for April 16 as the day for Ethan to roll over for the first time. Well, as it turned out, Ethan decided that he would not be happy with merely hitting that milestone head on, he wanted to be early. So on April 14, he rolled over for the first time. He was a bit shy with it at first and rolled over when no one was looking. His aunt Ashley put him down for a little "Tummy Time" and turned around for a few seconds just to turn back to see Ethan on his back with a look of pure shock on his face as if to say "What the hell, just happened???!!!" Well, by the next day Ethan had the whole rolling over thing down pat and would no longer tolerate ANY "Tummy Time". So at only 3 months and 29 days, Ethan beat the 4 month milestone by a full 2 days. Now, does this mean Ethan is going to be a genius, you might ask?

Yes, I think it does.

Easter 2010

2010-04-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

For the last four months Ethan has been hearing about the huge parties and festivities that he gets to enjoy as a Greek, so he was very excite to finally be awake for one of them. Sure enough EVERYONE came, as usual for Easter. Ethan had got hang out with Dad's Nouno, Nouna and Nounitsa, which I guess would be his Nounopous, Nounia-yia and Nounia-yitsa?
And he got to bond with his own Nouno and Nouna as well. His cousin, Gianna had a great time with "Baby Ethan", especially considering that this was her second Easter and she felt that she was well seasoned in the matter. She loves to play with Ethan and had a blast trying to trick Ethan into trying this years Magaritsa soup (which for those of you that don't know is a lamb based soup and when I say lamb, I mean the ENTIRE lamb... you can use your imagination from there). Luckily he is still just on formula so the little prank did not get too far. However, Gianna still got a great reaction out of him, classic.

For more pictures from Ethan's first Easter, follow this link.

More laughing!!

2010-03-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

I promised everyone more video of Ethan laughing, so here it is! I am not going to say much because there is nothing I can say which will top how adorable Ethan is when he laughs. Enjoy!

Got Drool?

2010-03-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Ethan's baptism is coming up so we decided to try a "professional" style photo shoot for Ethan's announcement. The pictures aren't quite professional, but they didn't turn out too bad and I think that they did a decent job of capturing Ethan's fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, loving-the-word personality. In the picture below, I believe that this is Ethan's trying to be flirtatious with a look that says: "Hey baby. Got drool?"

For more pictures from this photo shoot, follow this link.

Life of the Party

2010-03-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad have been telling Ethan all about food from various countries and he has been very eager to check it out. I think, in part, it was because he was kind of confused as to how there could be that many different flavors of milk. When Mom's friends from residency, Sarah and Greg, came into town and Mom said she was going for sushi, Ethan promised to be a good boy if she took him along. He know it was a big deal so he wanted to dress as fashionably as possible for sushi. So he put on his Burberry shirt and slacks and then threw on his fishing hat to go along with the whole sushi theme. He ended up looking a bit like Padington Bear, but it was way too cute for us to say anything.
Sure enough, Ethan kept to his word and was a VERY good boy. He laughed and played and ended up being the life of the party. If this keeps up, Mom and Dad are going to have their hands full, if they don't already.

For more pictures of Ethan being the life of the party follow this link.

3 Months Old!!!!

2010-03-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day: 3 months old!!! Now why was this such a big deal? Well it is for several reason:

1) It is the first birthday in which is age didn't at least double. I mean his first month birthday was exciting because it was his first. However, Ethan was a little depressed on his second birthday because he was concerned that his age had exactly doubled, going from 1 to 2 months. Can you imagine if every birthday your age doubled!!??? It is enough to make anyone depressed. I think to some extent Ethan was expecting his age to double again on his next birthday; needless to say, he was a little apprehensive about it. In the end, though, he was quite relieved that his 3rd birthday only resulted in a 50% age increase from the last. I think he is starting to settle into this whole birthday and aging thing and is now excited that on his next birthday his age is only going to increase by 33.333333...%. Oh, to see things from a child's perspective.

2) He is Greek, and as we all know 3 is kind of an important number.

3) It is the only time in his life that he will ever be able to celebrate his birthday AND Saint Patrick's Day (one of his mother's favorite "holidays") at the same time.

So we all had a great time and looking forward to the next one!

For more photos from Ethan's 3 month birthday (and St. Patty's Day) follow this link

Aunt Ashley Arrives

2010-03-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

This was a very exciting week for Ethan. His (almost) Aunt Ashley finally arrived. He has been so excited for her to see how big and grown up he is. He spent a good part of the time before her arrival practicing his sitting. When he started to get that down he thought that he would be even more impressive if he showed her how he can sit in a big persons chair. Well, I tried to explain the size proportion thing, but he was quite insistent that it would make him look even more grown up.

When Ashley finally got here he was thrilled to finally meet the last of his Aunts. That had a great time catching up and in the end Ashley really was quite impressed with how big Ethan had grown.

For more pictures of Aunt Ashley's arrival, follow this link.

Sibling Rivalry

2010-03-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

Although Ethan is still an only child, he is lucky enough to have a lot of cousins around him who are part of duo: Luke and Cole, Gianna and Alessandra, and Aiden and "Chochilla-part II" (I guess that kind of sounds like movie sequel, but I am not sure what the going term of endearment is). Well through his interactions with these cousins, Ethan is starting to appreciate the subtle nuances of the sibling relationships.
The other day we went to visit Luke and Cole (oh, ya, and we got to see Uncle John and Aunt Kris too). They both adore Ethan and are eager for him to hurry up and grow, so that they can play with him: "Is he grown up yet?" they frequently ask. But for now, they do what they can, to play him as they can.
When we got there Luke decided to show Ethan how he likes to rock out to Ol' McDonald on his Sponge Bob Square Pants Gee-tar.
Well Cole saw this and decided that he would pretend to be someone more important than a rock star. So he played a Holy Priest, to which Ethan played along and kissed his hand appropriately.
Well, Luke saw that and decided that he could do even better and proceeded to do his God impression from Leanardo's Sistine Chapel.

Unfortunately, that was a hard one for Cole to top so he seceded to his older brother. They all had a great time and are looking forward to the time when Ethan is finally "grown up" so they can all play together.

For more pictures of Ethan's visit to Luke and Cole, follow this link.

The Many Faces of Ethan Andreas Stoddard

2010-03-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

You have all heard me brag about how expressive Ethan is; however, until now you just had to take my word for it. Well, this weekend Ethan's Aunt Samantha visited and he gave her a little show of his full repertoire of facial expressions and impersonations. Yes, that is right, he even does impersonations! So without further adieu....

We all know the smiling Ethan

The Surprised Ethan

The "I'm gonna stare you down!" Ethan

The "OK, you win" Ethan

The "Whatcha talkin' 'bout Dad?" Ethan

And last, but definitely not least...

Ethan's favorite impersonation....

(don't ask me why he chose this one, but....)

Ethan does......

Billy Idol!!!

ROCK the Cradle of Love!!!

BABY!!!!

Impressive, huh?

For more of the many faces of Ethan (and of Aunt Samantha's visit) follow this link.

Laughing!!!

2010-03-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

Ethan has finally decided to take his big smile to the next level with a beautiful little laugh. He is still working on it so it doesn't come out as frequently as we would like, but on rare special occasions it does come out. To further complicate things, he always gets distracted whenever we take out the camera making the capture of these rare events incredibly difficult. However, we were able to successfully capture a few in this clip. We will keep on trying and upload more as they become available.

The Philadelphia Flower Show

2010-03-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that both Elena and myself have lived in Philadelphia for longer than we care to admit, there are few standard Philly events which neither one of us has ever been to. We figure that now that we have Ethan, we need to start exposing him to as much as possible. No more excuse for not going. So last weekend, we finally went to the Philadelphia Flower Show. It was the first thing that we have done as a family for which it was the first time for ALL of us. Mom and Dad had a great time, but Ethan seemed more interested in sleeping. Oh well, I guess we will have to try again next year.

Dad especially had a good time playing with his new camera. For more photos from the Flower Show, follow the link below. Just a warning, though, there really aren't too many photos of Ethan this time. This is more of an excuse for Dad to show of some of the pictures that he is particularly proud of. Hope you all enjoy. More of Ethan on the way....

For more photos, go here...

Sitting and Standing!

2010-02-26T17:53:00.001-08:00

Ethan seems to be growing faster than we ever imagined. From day 1 he was holding his head up and at only two and half months he can sit up...

and is even pulling himself up to standing. He is so proud when he does and gets so excited to look around at the world from higher up. He gets that huge grin on his face and at times will even get angry if you leave him sitting for too long! It seems like it won't be long until he is running around. Look out Mom and Dad!

Alessandra Eleni Chiaravalloti is Born!!!

2010-02-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

This was a VERY exciting weekend! Ethan's newest cousin Alessandra Eleni Chiaravalloti was born on 2/18/2010. Mother and daughter are doing well and got to go home on Saturday. Luckily, they made a quick stop to Yiayia's where we finally got meet the newest member of the family. She is absolutely adorable.

Ethan was very excited to finally be "the big cousin". He spent the afternoon telling Alessandra all the things she had to look forward to in the next two months such as how to best handle difficult parents who just won't do what you are crying for them to do, and how to mess with Mom and Dad at the changing table (be careful Mike and Ariana, she learned from the best!). He was a bit disappointed that she slept through much of his advice, but didn't take it personally. Infants these days!

For more photos of Alassandra go here.

Ethan's First Piano Lesson

2010-02-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

For weeks now Ethan has been asking about the strange, big, black, boxy looking thing at the bottom of the stairs so we finally gave Ethan his very first piano lesson. He was pretty interested in hearing the Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise but then he started to get a bit bored. However, when Dad switch gears and started playing (and singing) Ol' McDonald, his eyes lit up! Move over Beethoven!!!

For more pictures of Ethan's first piano lesson, go here.

Telegadis Boys' Surpirse Visit

2010-02-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

We had a surprise visit from the Telegadis Cousins the other day and had a blast. We had missed Lukes birthday a few weeks back because of a HUGE storm so it gave us the chance to celebrate, sing "Happy Birthday" and open presents. Ethan was so excited that after an hour or so of playing he passed out from exhaustion. Ethan had a great time, though and is looking forward to playing more with his big cousins Luke and Cole

For more photos, go here.

Ethan's First Play-Date

2010-02-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

Ethan was very excited to have his very first play date yesterday with Mommy's Co-Fellow's Daughter, Farida. He was initially concerned to be going out on a date with a girl who was a month and half younger than him. I tried to explain that six weeks was not a big difference, but when he pointed out that at his age (ie two months), two weeks is actually 1/4 his age, I didn't have much to argue with. When he put it that way, it would be like a 30 year old dating a 120 year old. Well he eventually agreed to go and ended up having a great time. Ethan, Farida, and the two parents went out to a nice Indian restaurant where both Ethan and Farida had a friendly competition as to who could sleep the deepest throughout the entire dinner. We then accompanied the two kids up to her place where Farida was kind enough let Ethan swing in her Little Lamb Swing making him feel just at home (he has the exact same one). After nap-time the date was over and Ethan agreed that he had a great time.

For more photos of Ethan's first play-date, go here