Merry Christmas!

Well, this was definitely our best Christmas so far with Evan. It was really wonderful to have both sets of grandparents and Uncle Brian & Kayle in town to celebrate with, and the days surrounding the holiday with visits from special friends and cousin Veronica! Evan was treated to a live lobster dinner AND a seafood boil (both of which he devoured), and so many presents he was clearly overwhelmed by all of the new toys. It was incredibly fun to watch him get so excited about Santa and opening presents, and a riot when he joined in for some Wii action. We are so thankful for a wonderful year, and for our amazing family & friends who continue to fill our lives with love & laughter!

More Fun...

Evan is loving to talk about Santa, the red nosed reindeer (and watching for the "reindeer" in our yard), the Christmas specials of his favorite cartoons, and eating out a lot since mommy doesn't want to cook! Here's pix of making brownies, meeting Evan's adorable new friend, and the Zoo Lights - very fun!

Christmas Season

This holiday season has been so much fun with Evan, and there's so much more to look forward to! We can't get enough of the pre-Xmas activities, and were enjoying the great weather...until this week - brrr!!

Making a gingerbread house:

Wrapping presents, playing outside, and snoozing on the way to visit Santa:

Still a "Big Boy"

We had Evan's 2 yr. check up today, and he's still topping out the charts for height! He's an even 3'-0" tall (90th %tile) and 29 lbs. (50th %tile). She sat observing and asking him questions for over 30 minutes, and kept saying, "Are you sure he's only 2?", and that she was "just in awe" of how advanced his communication and physical skills are for his age - especially considering he's a boy. She thought that he was so amazing (I think after he counted to 10 for her), that she even commented that if she were me, she'd be scared to have another child because Evan has set our standards so high and it's not typical to have such an advanced 2 year old! One of her first ?'s was if I thought he might have 50 words - I told her that a year ago, he had close to 50 signs (which they count as words) - and that he speaks in 3-4 words sentences now. Maybe we just have an easily impressed pediatrician, but we do think that he's pretty special. Ok - enough gushing? :)

On a Happier Note

Aside from being very sick, we got to go get our Xmas tree in warm, sunny weather! We also did one of Evan's favorite activities, he "walks" Lucy down to the pond and will spend all afternoon throwing rocks into the water if you let him.

Sick

Evan and I have been sick for a few days - we thought it was just a cold to start, so we hung around the house trying to keep occupied, we even made some Christmas cookies! But on Sat. night, Evan was pretty bad and we made our first trip to the emergency room. Of course, he thought it was great - they have popsicles, a fish tank, and cartoons, what's not to like? The doc was surprised to find that he had a pretty severe double ear infection, because he was being so well-mannered - and he had pink eye on top of that! The pic with the hat (where he is obviously not doing well) is on our way to the ER around midnight. Evan's usually pretty healthy, this is only the 2nd time he's been really sick, so it's pretty scary for us - he's doing much better now, back to his usual energetic self :)

It Takes a Village

I'm sure that anyone with kids can relate, but sometimes it really strikes me - like when we get together with friends and let the toddlers run wild. On Friday night we had 10 adults, 5 toddlers, 3 pregnant ladies, 1 baby, and a partridge in a pear tree! The kids loved the Trail of Lights at the Botanic Gardens, and it was pretty funny to see them literally run in every direction (the term "herding cats" comes to mind). There was a pretty cool treehouse that they hilariously all got up into, and then proceeded to have an impromptu dance party! It may not be your child's nose you're wiping, or your little one you're swooping up to keep from running into the trees/water/drop-off - but it doesn't matter, and you know that even if your kid isn't within immediate sight, they're in the group and someone's looking out for them! Good times, it was nearly like before we all had kids and used to go out on Friday nights...

Happy 2nd Birthday, Evan!!

TWO, already?! We didn't really have much planned for Evan's big day, because we hosted Thanksgiving the day before with a big group of friends. It was great this year to have the kids join us at the table for dinner, and we were so thankful to have such a wonderful group to celebrate with! It was a very late night, so we had a mellow morning on Evan's birthday and let the day take shape, which turned out absolutely perfect. We went for a hike in the morning at Red Rocks, spent the afternoon opening presents and eating cake (that mom baked from scratch!), and went out for pizza dinner with friends. Evan spent the day marveling over the present opening, and "returning" the Happy Birthday's to people. It started snowing in the evening, and we woke up today to a blanket of snow on the trees and a beautiful sunrise over the hills. All in all, it was really amazing to experience the past couple of days surrounded by people that mean so much to us, and have been such a big part of Evan's life. We are all so lucky to have so much support and love! Thank you all, for your good wishes, your time, your friendship and for spoiling Evan!

Energy to Burn

This is how we've been "hiking" lately (set to Evan's favorite song):

And pix from a post exercise/playtime lunch out - anywhere that has mac 'n cheese, blue jello and enough high chairs for our big group is a winner!

Back to Cali

This past weekend we were in CA again for nephew Jack's baptism. What a mellow & sweet baby he is! We had lots of fun visiting, having an early birthday celebration for Evan, and hanging out in San Fran. Evan is really a seasoned traveler, but mom & dad are exhausted from all of our trips - we're happy to be spending the holidays at our house this year!

Reflection

This time last year, we were preparing for Evan's 1 year birthday party - he could stand alone, take a few unassisted steps, climb up and down stairs, use about 15 signs and 12 words, and loved trying new foods. It's truly amazing to see how much he's changed this year! I couldn't even guess at how many words he knows, he loves running/jumping/spinning/marching, giving hugs & kisses, animals, music, hiking, helping us out with anything, his FRIENDS (he loves to name them all, or request who should come when we're going on an outing)...and tons of other things - the enthusiasm of discovering the world for the first time :)

I thought his first year was wonderful and exciting, but then he hit about 15 months and things REALLY got fun! He's so much more self-sufficient now, he's energetic and enthusiastic, and really fun to play with. He seems to be excited about the new baby - our friend gave us a really cute book about being a big brother, and it's one of his regular requests.

Here's some recent shots - I managed to catch a shot of him somewhat close to a butterfly at the Butterfly Pavilion, but it definitely wasn't his favorite outing. After he got dive-bombed upon entering the room, he wanted nothing to do with the "scary" butterflies!

Chicago

What a fun time we had visiting our friends, the Muller's, in Chicago. It's been so long since we were able to get together, the kids were just babies! It was nice & relaxing, and we even survived the flight without a seat for Evan...although not recommended.

Happy Halloween!

I really want to post a little video of our fun Halloween festivities, but our computer is on the brink of death (hence the very few blog posts, as well) - so if I don't throw it to the mountain lions before we can actually fix it, I'll post soon! We had a great week running from one fun activity to another, and still managed to revamp Evan's costume last minute. He wanted nothing to do with most of the accessories to his original. He thought trick-or-treating at the Children's Museum was a blast, once he figured out that he just had to say it and people gave him CANDY! We also did a hike in costumes (aka: chase the toddlers thru the woods), went to an afternoon party and got lots of trick-or-treaters. Phew.