Hey friends!
We've had an eventful week full of a bunch of firsts. When we last wrote we were headed to the doc for Ryan's ears the Monday before we were to travel to Nashville. That evening the doc found that Ryan's left ear drum was bulging and the other was still very red. He put Ryan on a stronger antibiotic that by Thursday had knocked out the infection entirely. Thank goodness!

Friday we headed to Detroit, made a pit stop at Ikea and then headed to Metro for our flight to Nashville. Since the flight was delayed, Ryan was exhausted by the time the plane backed out of the gate since his nap was delayed and he spent three hours entertaining the crowd and running around the airport. He was asleep before the wheels left the ground and slept for the entire flight until landing. Returning home we were almost as lucky. He was ornery for the first part of the flight but slept the second half. All in all, a great experience and no ear issues after all that!

Our time in Nashville was great too. Our niece and nephew were tons of fun (as were their parents.) We spent lots of time together just hanging out and watching our kids play together (which was surreal to see OUR KIDS hanging out!) Unfortunately, Ryan spiked a high fever soon after we got there and was not himself again until Sunday night. We felt like Johnny and Jill didn't get to "meet" Ryan until 6pm on Sunday only to have us leave on Monday am...but that's life with kids, right?

We're settling back into life here this week. Max had a baseball planning meeting tonight. Ryan and I hung with the Holohans after a wonderful day at work. All in all a great day.

So Ryan's firsts this week include:
- Opening a door handle
- Drinking from a straw in a juice box
- Viewing a cartoon
- Viewing a Vince Vahn movie (don't ask!)
- Ikea trip
- Airplane ride
- Meeting his cousins

That's all for now. We're prepping for Ryan's photoshoot for his 1 year portraits here at our house on Saturday. And tomorrow night we're headed to my former high school, Forest Hills Northern, to see our brother-in-law get inducted into a hall of all-stars with his FHN basketball team. Good stuff!

Love,
Court, Max + Ryan


Here's the group. Top: Max, Johnny. Middle: Court, Jill. Bottom: Ryan, Jackson, Carter

Just like Ryan, Carter loves her phones!

Carter showing off the latest features of her phone to her tech savvy cousin.

Could she look any more like an angel? I swear we did not curl her hair. She's just this cute on her own!


Just 3.5 years ago Max sat in this same chair holding Jackson for the first time. Now, Jackson is this amazing boy with the best imagination I know!

Here's "Uncle Courtney" as Jackson called Max all weekend!

Jackson learning about the "Gun Show" from Max.

On MLK day, when Jackson was asked to finish the sentence "I have a dream..." he completed it by adding "...to be a Star Wars." When he turns 5 (in a year and 2 months) he'll be able to watch it. Talk about anticipation! Here he is sporting a new Star Wars t-shirt.

Carter got a new bathing suit that she refused to take off, even though there was a light snow coming down out the window!

The kiddos. Carter turns 2 in April and Ryan is 14 months....but they were the same size!

The Ettinger men listening to Ryan as he tells them about life in Grand Rapids and his views on health care legislation.

Ryan's first driving lesson from daddy. Here he is taking Jackson's car for a joy ride.

The day after we returned home, Ryan shows off his skills with the spoon. He loves yogurt!

14 months

Two things are apparent by our lack of blogging lately:
1) we have a busy-bodied 1 year old who keeps us going from sun up until sun down.
2) we have decided that we actually live at 166 Ashridge and have been spending mass amounts of time nesting. (Ok, my undies and socks are still stored in a box in the closet, but we have pictures hung on the wall...there are trade offs.)

We celebrated our first semi-healthy week in a long time! Ryan is getting over a double ear infection, but other than that, he's healthy! We're headed to the doctor's in about 10 minutes to get them checked out since he keeps tugging on them. (Forest Hills Pediatric rocks. Office hours in the evening, walk in clinic 4 days a week including Saturday's and 24 hour care through GRAPES. What more can you ask for? Our appointment tonight is at 7:40pm!)

Normally we'd leave Ryan's ears alone since they are not bothering him too badly. But we can't since Friday he'll fly for the first time. We're headed to Nashville for four days. Ryan will meet his cousins—Carter and Jackson—as well as his Aunt Johnny and Aunt Jill for the first time. And I get to lay my hands on the chubby little cheeks of my niece Carter for the first time! (She was born during my horrible bouts of morning sickness). We're so excited! Could there be a better week? The Superbowl, a possible snow day for Max Wed (huge storm coming) and then Nashville! And tomorrow marks the return of Ryan's beloved Jenny, his former sitter that moved to Florida. She missed us so much that she moved back! Lucky for us just in time since Ryan's buddy Henry is sick this week and because we don't want to chance him getting ill with our trip, Ryan is not being watched by Henry's momma this week.

Other than that, Ryan is growing tall. He can now reach about a foot onto the kitchen table, so no surface is safe. He's repeating everything we say (airplane, apple, lion, dada, mama, etc) and he loves to say "Uh-oh" at the appropriate times. He's very good at carrying two binkies around and will put the correct color in his mouth when asked. He's got a bit of the devil in him too. (Good!) He loves to do naughty things and look at you with this coy smile on his face as he does so. We'll also soon post video of him dancing. He loves to shake it! Check out this months pictures and we'll be sure to post when we return from the meeting of the cousins. Hope each of you are doing well and staying warm this winter.

Love to you all,
Court, Max + Ryan


Ryan sure loves his spaghetti! His hair is starting to get really long and curl up in the back. So cute!


Our little cowboy. I think of him as a Duke in this. (Duke of Hazard that is.)

Tearing apart the newspaper is among his favorite activity.

Ryan makes most anything into a toy, including this canister we found at our house. Right now he's walking around with the Xmas light control babbling to himself. Sometimes we catch him playing and talking to himself. Last week Deb caught him reading a book to himself.


Busted. Here sweet child breaks into the diaper bag on our way out the door to work / childcare.

The cutest profile there ever was!