All Christmased Out

Christmas Morning - Part 3

Christmas Morning - Part 2

Christmas Morning - Part 1

Snowed In With A Sick Baby

Evan was diagnosed with an ear infection on Friday afternoon, and he has a recurring fever, a runny nose and cough and is cutting three molars at once. Poor miserable baby!!! I went to the Target Pharmacy to pick up his antibiotics prescription at 4:30 on Friday, only to be told that they wouldn't be able to fill it until 8 pm due to being slammed with prescription fills that day. So Tom made the evening run and got back home before the snow started Friday night. When we woke Saturday to about 6 inches, we thought we'd gotten the worst of it. We were mistaken. It snowed non-stop all day Saturday and when it was all said and done, we had TWO FEET of snow on the ground.

Saturday night/Sunday morning was miserable for all three of us because Evan couldn't stay asleep for more than about 3 hours at a time before he'd wake up crying. And now Sleep Deprived Tom has to get outside and dig us out. It's been a looong weekend so far!!

Not Impressed with Santa

Evan's daycare had a family holiday party today and Santa dropped in for some photo ops. This was Evan's first encounter with Santa, and he really eyed him up and down but decided in the end that he didn't really like the guy much.

He was very cranky this morning and seemed a bit 'off' but was okay at the party and even put on a dancing and singing show for the other parents. However, an hour after I got back to work, I got a call from the daycare saying Evan had a fever. He's cutting two molars at once so this may be the culprit but we're going to the doctor this afternoon, just in case there's more to it. Poor little fella!!

Playpen Volleyball

Accident

Last Sunday, Evan was running through Tom's den while pushing his corn popper toy and he lost his balance and crashed face first into Tom's computer tower, which sits on the floor. He ended up with a bruise on his forehead, a bloody and bunged up nose and a big scrape on his chin. Poor little guy!!

Fun Saturday

Last Saturday, Evan and I met up with our friends Megan and Brennan at the mall. The boys got to play in the Play Pit before lunch and then after our Chick-Fil-A feast, we all rode the carousel. Evan had never been in this play pit or on a carousel before so he was very excited. He absolutely LOVED the carousel and cried when we had to get off of it. I guess we'll be riding that every time we go to the mall now!

Ballet Dancing to Bono

Evan took great interest in a 1983 U2 concert that Tom had playing on TV in his den, and he stood staring at the screen for quite a while. Then all of a sudden, he lifted his arms above his head, stood on his tippy-toes and started doing this hilarious ballet-type dance to the song "Electric Co." Then he looked over his shoulder and saw that I was behind him and danced backwards towards me, then fell back into my arms. It was totally hilarious and of course, my camera was nowhere nearby at the time. But after that, I ran upstairs and got the camera and caught him recreating a little bit of the dance.

Hanging Out in a Toybox

Evan kicked several of his stuffed animals out of their basket and climbed right in. But when he was ready to get out, he discovered that he could use a little help.

Happy Birthday To Me

Saturday Dec. 5th was my birthday and Mother Nature decided to give me our first snow of the season as a present. We ended up staying in all day and eating birthday cake, but we all got outside on Sunday the 6th for a nice family walk. Evan didn't seem overly impressed with the snow but he did enjoy kicking at it a little after I showed him how.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tom's sister Becky and her husband Brad hosted Thanksgiving this year AGAIN! Thank you so much, guys! The food was amazing!! Evan had lots of fun playing with his twin cousins Ava and Aiden and Brad's 3 adorable nieces. He also enjoyed showing off his new dance moves to everybody. I hardly have any good pictures of the gathering, though. It was virtually impossible to get the 3 rambunctious toddlers to all sit still together long enough to snap a picture. Oh well, at least we have our memories of a great time!

Get Down, Get Funky

Telling Off a Dog

Tom and I loathe our neighbors' pit bull because he barks at anything that moves, which basically means he's barking all the time. We usually do our best to ignore him, but today Evan decided to tell him a thing or two.

Walking Outside with Daddy

Eating with a Spoon

Mmm, Mashed Potatoes!

Dancing King - Part II

Dancing King- Part I

Wild and Crazy

Evan's daycare had "Wild and Crazy Day" day last Friday and everyone (teachers and the center director included) wore funny hats, silly hair styles or wild combinations of clothing. Evan doesn't own much in the way of wacky clothing but this did give him a chance to show off his
Rock 'N Roll jeans!

My Little Star

Evan is doing really well at his new daycare center and has learned a lot in just a few weeks. He really seems to enjoy Music Time and has done a lot of dancing in his class. He's also recently started to do hand motions to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." It's hard to capture his performances on video because he usually stops as soon as he sees me with the camera. But here you can see him doing some of the motions and can even hear him singing along on part of it.

Helping Mommy Clean Up (Or Not...)

Fun with Kleenex!

New Toy

When I saw this 'Corn Popper' toy in the store yesterday, I thought "Evan will like this because he likes to push and pull things across the floor." What I wasn't thinking was "This is going to sound like a machine gun going off repeatedly in our house." Well, at least I was right about it being a hit with Evan. He LOVES it! Our cats, Willow and Crosby, however, do not love it.

Hurricane Evan

Disorderly Conduct

It has become very obvious to me lately that Evan dislikes anything that's too neat or tidy. When he discovers a laundry basket full of folded clothes, he takes every item out one by one and tosses them on the floor. He opens dresser drawers and pulls out everything within his reach, and he purposely knocks over stacks of books and pulls his photo albums out of their storage crate. And in these particular photos, he'd just discovered the cabinet in which I store my cardigan sweaters. He took one look at those three piles of neatly stacked sweaters, and well, you guessed it...

Halloween Parade

Evan's daycare had a Halloween Parade today in which all the little kids got decked out in their costumes and took a stroll around the center's parking lot. I held Evan's hand and we made the full loop, with him taking tiny little steps in his big ole monkey feet. Needless to say, it was a looooong walk! He loved it, though, and when it was time to go home and he had to trade in his freedom for a car seat, he was one Mad Monkey!

Carrots as Hair Gel?

I placed some ravioli squares and some mushy cooked carrots on Evan's high chair tray the other night so that he could feed himself his dinner. He ate all of the pasta but just stirred most of the carrots around with his fingers. The next thing I knew, the carrots were in his hair! He started deliberately rubbing them through his hair from the top of his head down. Once he was finished with his masterpiece, he got all upset. It's not clear whether he decided that he didn't like having a head full of carrot juice after all, or if he was just mad because he had nothing left to 'paint' with.

Mooching Nana's Peach Milk Shake

Zzzzzzzzzzz

Cool Dance Moves

Talking on the Phone

The All-You-Can-Sleep Buffet

Getting It

We've noticed recently that Evan watches his videos with much more understanding now, and he laughs at all of the appropriate times. Here he is totally cracking up over the silly antics of a tiger puppet in the Baby Einstein video "Numbers Nursery." This scene makes him laugh every time.

Walking on the Sidewalk

Big Slide

Pumpkinville

Scary October

Phew, we have had a really crazy month so far. I took the first two days of Oct. off to take Evan to his new daycare center to help him transition from a small in-home daycare to a big center with 10 kids in his class. He seemed to really enjoy himself while we were there. On Sat. Oct 3rd, the 3 of us went to a pumpkin festival and petting zoo. Evan enjoyed looking at the animals and going on the hayride. His Dad also took him down a big slide, but he didn't have much of a reaction. Tom enjoyed it, though.

Then Evan's first official day of 'school' went well and he was totally hopped up with adrenaline when we got him home that night! He was literally running around in circles and laughing like a lunatic. He didn't sleep very well that night but we assumed it was from all the excitement of his day. However, the very next day he got sent home with a fever. The following day the doctor confirmed that he had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, which 5 other kids in his class had been diagnosed with on the same day. Poor little fellow had a tough time with it. He had big red rash splotches all over his body and blisters in his mouth and on his hands and feet. He wouldn't eat much of anything and seemed to feel terrible. We had to keep him home from daycare for a week and he became very clingy to both me and Tom. I rearranged my upcoming vacation (supposed to be Oct. 19-23) to Oct. 12-16 and my parents change their plans so that they'd come a week earlier, too so they could help out with Evan. And on the first day of my vacation, I got a horrible sore throat and ran a fever, and discovered blisters on my hands and feet the next day! So even though Hand, Foot and Mouth disease is supposed to be a "Child's Virus" for children 10 and under, I managed to get it too! Someone pointed out that with odds like that, I should play the lottery!

Well, it's a new week now and the sun finally came out again after an eternity of rain, so things are looking up. Evan's had a good week at daycare so far and we're both close to being blister free! I'll say it again... PHEW!!

Zonked Out, Part 2

Evan's temperature returned to normal this weekend but he's still sleeping a bit more than usual. I took him shopping with me on Saturday and he crashed in his stroller for almost two hours, after having an hour long morning nap in his playpen. This morning his appetite finally showed signs of recovery as he chowed down on some pancakes and scrambled eggs. And now he's sleeping off his full belly again...