A big 5 months...

Since I lasted posted, the Brown family has grown from Phil, Lisa, Ethan and Moses to incorporate it's newest member.  I'm currently 24 weeks pregnant with another little boy.  When Phil and I discovered I was expecting, the news was welcome but surprising.  I have to say I was just enjoying having a nice glass of wine after Ethan went down for the night - but that will have to wait!

Since April, Ethan has been growing in leaps and bounds.  He's now almost 11 months and he's turning into a real little boy.  His vocabulary is coming along nicely and includes words such as Mum, Dad, dog, duck, yay, yum and just recently, hello.  His favourite word has to be dog because he's just besotted with Moses and would happily sit and pull his hair all day if we'd let him.

He's also very close to walking.  After a slow start to his crawling career (about 8 1/2 months), he has taken to walking around whilst grabbing onto things very quickly.  He now stands reasonably comfortably by himself so we're just waiting for him to take that first step unassisted.

Ethan also has been busy growing teeth.  His first popped through while we were holidaying in New Zealand (8 months) and the second followed closely after.  We've been lucky enough as a household to also get another three through in the past few weeks.  It's been a tumultuous time!  But we've been enjoying Ethan so much - every day he makes us smile and laugh.  We're constantly amazed by his development and how fast he's growing up.  We're also excited about adding another little boy to the family.  We're hopeful that the two boys will be great friends.

While this time has been filled with the joy of watching Ethan grow, it has also been an extremely challenging time for us as a family.  I've been unwell for most of the pregnancy (again!) and this has taken it's toll.  Phil has also been going through a really tough time a work with a lot of disunity in the parish and accusations made against him.  We're looking forward to this phase coming to an end and moving on with life and ministry.