Evan's Second Christmas

Evan's second Christmas was slightly more exciting than his first.

We were supposed to go to WV to visit the families but Winter Storm Draco had other plans. Instead, the three of us spent nearly 5 entire days cooped up in the house together. Let's just say Evan was quite excited to go to daycare this morning.

Since we didn't travel, it was business as usual until Monday. On Monday, we got to Skype with Aunt Annie in Afghanistan. Evan's interest lasted about 2 minutes but at least I got to talk to her for a while.

We tried to get some shots of Evan and Laika by the tree on Christmas Eve... but this is all we ended up with:

I'm pretty sure he was just about to climb on top of her. That's definitely his "watch this" face.

On the night before Christmas, I was not in my 'kerchief, nor was David in his cap but I took some pictures that made that poem impossible to get out of my head.

Our stockings were hung by the not-chimney with care. This picture is the story of a growing toddler. Last year the stockings were hung on the shelf. As you can see, they've moved up and out of toddler reach. The bottom cabinets are taped closed (we're classy like that) and the bottom shelves have turned into kid shelves. The top shelves are cluttered full of things that used to be on the bottom and now it's almost not a safe spot anymore! I'm starting to think we should just bite the bullet and turn our entire house into a playroom. It's starting to feel that way, at least.

Evan didn't know Christmas morning from any other morning except that it was Tuesday and why was he not going to daycare...again?! We facetimed with Grandma Janet and Papaw Mike while he opened a few gifts, then we facetimed with Grandma Barbi and Grandpa Ed while he opened a few more.

He opened some books and the gift opening was over. All he wanted to do was read the books. So, he was left with two presents under the tree for after his nap.

One tiny piece of paper at a time.

And he insisted on taking each one to the garbage.

He likes the cars. 

The unwrapping was going well until the books...

Then it was just reading time.

I was able to convince him to take Lars' gift to him since he was too lazy
to join us in the living room. 

We played with farm animals and a
train track while David made breakfast-lunch
(not to be confused with brunch).

My Boys

Me and E

We had our traditional Christmas Breakfast as lunch because Evan needs to eat pretty quickly after he gets up and Christmas Breakfast takes a while. Biscuits and gravy for lunch is never a bad thing.

We weren't about to have a big Christmas dinner for just the three of us but it seemed depressing and lonely to not do something so we had a small version of Christmas dinner.

As an extra bonus, we got a white day-after-Christmas. Evan semi-enjoyed his first snow adventure. As long as he was standing, it was all good. He did not want to sit down in the snow though.

As a bonus, Evan will get to celebrate Christmas two more times. Once, when Grandma Barbi and Grandpa Ed visit next weekend and again when we celebrate during Annie's Welcome-Back-Michaela's-Birthday-Labor-Day-Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New-Years party in February. Best Christmas gift ever = Aunt Annie back home safe and sound! :)

He's Smart

I know these videos aren't so pretty. My video editing software apparently doesn't like the iPhone 5 videos. Brilliant new phone, not-so-brilliant editing app. So... more technical difficulties around here.

You get the point though...

LJS

We were supposed to be in WV this weekend but Winter Storm Draco had other plans. Since we hadn't planned on being home, we didn't have much around the house for lunch. David had a hankering for Long John Silvers (i.e. he was craving grease) so I obliged and we went to LJS for lunch. I got to tell Evan a great story about LJS...

I used to drive my Grandma Lil around to the grocery store and for errands. Sometimes we'd stop for lunch while we were out and about. Since she was paying, I always said I didn't care and it was up to her. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into by having no opinion. She'd think and think and then say, "How about Long John's?" like it was some crazy and exciting place that she'd never suggested before or a new place in town that we'd never tried or an extravagant restaurant so expensive that we'd never tell anyone that we'd spent so much money on lunch. 

So, she'd eat her Fish N More and I'd eat my Chicken N More and we'd talk about life while getting our daily grease intake. Then I'd feel like the favorite grandchild when she'd splurge and spend $0.99 so I could have a triangle of refrigerated pie. 

I miss her and I wish she could've known Evan but at least the Long John's Love seems to have skipped a couple generations and reemerged in Evan. He was more excited than I'd like to admit about his fish kids meal, aka box of grease.

A New Word

I just got a new laptop. My old one was acting really weird and I don't want to get to the point of total meltdown. Plus, my hard drive has been full for a very long time. I was constantly deleting stuff just so I could make room for new pictures. Now I have a luxuriously large hard drive for my bajillion pictures and a computer that doesn't spaz out after 10 minutes of use. Perfect! However, it's going to take me a bit to get my old camera-computer-edit-blog process down on the new computer. Until then, you get videos!

Too Smart for His Own Good

This may be the most impressive thing I've seen Evan do yet...

He has a box of animal flash cards. He loves to look through them and make the animal noises. He was looking at them the other day. I have to admit, David and I weren't paying any attention to him because we were checking out our newly installed AT&T U-verse. Evan walks over and hands me some things. I said "Thank you, Buddy" without even looking at the things and he goes back to his flash cards. A minute or so later, I look at what he had handed me:

He had come across the owl card and dug the stuffed owl out of his toy basket. He saw the flash card and purposefully searched out the matching toy! Mind blown.

Also, just today I learned that I can lay all the flash cards out on the floor and say, "Give me the horse", and he'll give me the horse. He's at about 90% with that game and that's only because he doesn't know some things, like antelope. (Are there many 16 months olds out there who know an antelope by sight? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know if the word wasn't printed below it.) That's a very exciting game to play-- watching his gears turn as he scans the cards for the right animal is so fun.

I taught Evan a cool new trick. Well, it's cool until it backfires. Then it's a super unfortunate trick. He will "put this in the garbage for me." It's great when we're actually cleaning. What's not so great is when his brain wires get twisted (which they do a lot and it's kinda funny) and he puts his socks in the garbage instead of in his bedroom. Or when I tell him to put his toys away, and "away" ends up being the garbage. Or when he's just bored and decides to start putting things in there... like remotes or cell phones. We haven't lost anything of value yet... that we know of.

We had a sick day today (pukey Evan). Once he was done puking, all he wanted to do was sit on the kitchen floor and eat Crispix. I have no idea why, but he sat there forever. And he's missing a sock because it was something he decided to throw in the garbage-- right into some yucky food. You like his outfit? That's what you get when you puke on your clothes at daycare. Totally random.

I finally got a good picture and made our Christmas cards. I might get them in time to get them labeled and mailed by Christmas. I should be more on top of things. Here are some outtakes. Both are versions of his reaction to the question, "What does a butterfly do?" Apparently a butter fly puts its arms and legs up and balances on its butt? It's hilarious to watch him try.

"I ate Santa's cookies..."

"... and the evidence is on my face... and I have bed head..."

Yeah, yeah... he had cookies before breakfast this morning. 

Just practicing for some Christmas pictures. It's so much more difficult than last year. I prefer immobile Evan when it comes to pictures! The cookies didn't even work to keep him still for a minute.  

Quite a Day

We left work early on Tuesday to take Evan to get his flu booster shot. As we learned at his 15 month appointment, he's figured out the doctor's office. He's perfectly fine until his but hits that paper covered table. Then he becomes a total spaz. The shot was quick and as soon as he was off the paper table, he was back to normal. Such a drama king.

Since it was still quite early, we decided to press our luck and see how the Santa line was. It was totally empty. From start to finish, we were the only ones in the Santa room. We entered cautiously and Evan was a little suspicious. After some high fives with Santa, David put Evan down so he could walk to Santa on his own. He walked right up to him and hugged him. We got some good pictures-- even though the dippy camera lady insisted on loudly jingling the jingle bells and yelling "EVAN!" at him. (All I had to do was ask him what the horse says which made him smile big and say "neh" and she missed that shot, of course.) While I was paying, Evan walked around looking at the toys and kept going back to hug Santa. It was so adorable!

They gave us gift certificates for free ice cream so we grabbed some while we were there. My crazy weird kid spit out the ice cream like it was asparagus flavored but noshed on some raisins once we got back in the car. Weird, yes, but I also love that he doesn't like sweets and is crazy about fruit.

Christmas Tree

We put the Christmas tree up last weekend. I knew how that was going to go so there are no breakable ornaments on the lower branches.

Right. I underestimated what "breakable" meant. After a little help in the beginning, I did most of the decorating myself while Evan was napping. He broke two glittery snowflakes within 15 minutes of being awake. The tree is now surrounded by baby gates. Classy.

This ornament had a picture of him from last Christmas inside it.
He was slightly amused. 

They don't taste good. (These are the ones he broke.)

Mama's Little Helper

Tree in Jail

Thanksgiving

We visited West Virginia for Thanksgiving. Evan did great on the drive both ways. We've figured out that the trick is to travel during nap or bedtime. I worried because this was his first roadtrip in his forward facing convertible car seat. It's far less reclining than his bucket seat so I was worried about how he'd sleep. He slept pretty well except I kept looking back and cringing at the stiff neck he must be getting. David assured me that stiff neck was an old person thing. I'm not so sure I believe him.

We got to WV around 5 on Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve. We spent some time with Grandma Janet and Grandpa Mike before heading to dinner at our favorite hole-in-the-wall with Rayan. Rayan, my bff from high school, had never met Evan. We had a fun dinner getting caught up. Evan was super cute but refused to eat anything but french fries for dinner. A healthy start to a healthy trip. Not.

Evan and Cosby reuniting

Thursday was a busy day of visits. We started the day at Grandma and Grandpa Jackson's. Evan got to play with his cousins, Mckenna and Landon. Well, not so much Mckenna. She's a jealous little girl and didn't want much to do with Evan. He had a blast with Landon though. Landon is a great cousin. He mad Evan laugh and laugh and laugh. I got very few pictures this trip (too busy chasing crazy man around) but was glad I got a couple of these cousins-- the only two boy cousins.

I'm usually very happy to be in Ohio but it's times like these (and when we get to see Michaela!) that I wish we were closer to family. I would love Evan to have cousins around to play with all the time.

Our next visit was to David's family. There were a lot of strangers (to Evan) there. I was shocked how he warmed up to everyone. It was only minutes before he was running all over the house. The funniest part was when Evan went up to Ed (not Grandpa Ed, cousin? Ed) and stood in front of him staring while he was eating. And then he signed "please." Ed gave him a bite of brownie and Evan proceeded to attempt to climb onto him-- a complete stranger. Apparently he's over his Stranger Danger issues.

Our last stop of the day was my Aunt Karen's. There were a lot of strangers there too (even strangers to me.) Evan wasn't fazed. He played with the strangers, ran all over the house and practiced his step climbing which resulted in lots of help from everyone.

He was mostly super cute everywhere we went. He's so good in public and around new people. Grandma Janet and Grandma (Mamaw?) Barbi both got to see the other side of Evan though. He's not all rainbows and sunshine.

As I said, I got very few pictures. In fact, the two above are pretty much it. I love this video though. My intention was to capture a glorious reunion between Evan and Cosby after Cos returned from his walk with Mike. Cosby was far less enthused than Evan. I love the end though-- just Evan and Papaw, strolling and shootin' the shit. <3 Too bad Papaw wasn't wearing his T-Rex Racing pants too. Hehe.

Just Some Stuff

A few little stories...

Lots of mommies are very... cheesy(?)... overly sentimental (?)... I'm not sure what the right word is, but I'm not it. I always read on blogs or Facebook posts or hear in person things like, "Your messy house can wait; spend time with your kids now." "They grow up so fast; treasure every moment." Blah, blah, blah. Well the other day, Evan was playing in his room while I was folding and hanging his laundry. And by "playing", I mean opening his drawers and slamming them with all his might with his fingers just millimeters away from being broken off. In an effort to save his precious little fingers, I grabbed a bottle of bubbles I saw in the closet and blew a few to distract him. And then I put them away. And then he whined and whined and whined. It occurred to me that this was precisely the moment the mommies were talking about. I was supposed to forget about those unmatched socks and blow some bubbles with my kid. So, I did. And, those socks sat there for nearly a week. And no one died because of it. So now... maybe I'm cheesy mommy too? No, probably not because I didn't post on Facebook about it.

.................

I cannot even express how psyched I am that Evan has begun to understand and follow directions. So far, we have:

"Put ____ away." (Your books, blocks, pajamas...)
"Leave it here." (Pacifier in his bed, which is the only place he's allowed to have it.)
"Close it." (Drawers, doors, cabinets...)
"Give this to Dad or Laika."
"Get me your ____." (Shoes is the one he knows best.)
"Can I have that?" (This works surprisingly well for things that aren't his... like when he gets hold of the remote or my cell phone.) 

.................

He's starting to understand hugs and kisses. If you ask him for a hug, you better watch out. Apparently that means run full force at me and crash into me. It's fun and sweet if you know it's coming but maybe not so much if you don't. And a kiss? Wide open mouth directly at your mouth. *Ahem*... I'm a little curious who taught him to kiss that way!

.................

He loves music. We have a sing-along DVD that he listens to every night. If he's throwing a fit, I sing a little song and he mellows out. If he's in the car or in a store and he hears a good tune, he bops his head... or should I say a good ditty... 'bout Jack and Diane. Yeah, he was bopping like crazy to some John Cougar Mellencamp the other day in the craft store. I was laughing so hard people were looking at me like I was crazy-town. Of course, as soon as I got my phone out to get a video, he stopped.
.................

Maybe the most random of all-- he dips! It's such a strange thing for us to be so excited about but it's so cool. For some reason it makes me see him as a real person...because real people dip. I'm referring to his food. We put a little BBQ sauce on his plate with his chicken nuggets (David's homemade chicken nuggets-- he's such a Martha Stewart) to see if he'd dip it himself. Oh, yeah. He was all over the dipping. First his nuggets, then his sweet potato fries, then his fingers. The kid loves to dip!

Oh, these two...

.................

I found a fantastic idea online... Scan or take pictures of kids' art or other projects and make a photo book out of them yearly or as necessary. That's so much better than my mom's box upon box upon box method that she had when we were growing up. So, here are the first items for the book...

The end.

Or, as Evan says at the end of a story, bye bye!

Crazy Hair, Singing, Reading and a Blankie

This week was spirit week at daycare. (I'm really not sure why??) Tuesday was crazy hair day-- my favorite day. 

We've finally broken out some of the Baby Genius DVDs that Evan got last Christmas. Up until very recently, he had absolutely zero interest in the TV-- even things we wanted him to watch. One of the DVDs is a visit to the San Diego zoo. It's just a bunch of video of different animals. He's pretty interested in it. But what he really loves is the Favorite Sing-Along Songs DVD. He makes all the animal noises with Old McDonald's Farm, he does the dance for Itsy Bitsy Spider and he pretends to eat Apples and Bananas. It's all quite adorable. I have some videos that I'll post later, but for now here he is getting into some sing-along. 

This is still his favorite thing though...

And sometimes I call him Linus (ironic that he's wearing a Snoopy shirt.) A blurry, but funny set: 

Laika was sitting on it

It's not even his blanket. It's just a throw that I keep in the living room for my cold feet. He loves pulling it around though. 

Outside Time

With the cool and rainy weather, it's been hard for us to get outside. But, that's how I keep Evan from going completely nuts-o in the evening. It's been a challenge, that's for sure. When it's cool but not rainy though, we just bundle up and go out. I'm not a fan of being outside when it's cold. I'm less of a fan of fighting with whiny baby all evening long. So, we bundle and go. 

So excited to do some exploring

He stood at the fence for a long time, shaking it and yelling for Laika (?). 

Oh, how I love this handsome boy! 

Trick or Treat!

Evan celebrated his second Halloween this week. It was cold and gross outside so we didn't do neighborhood trick or treat. Plus, our neighborhood sucks (full of old people and no kids) so we'd have to go elsewhere. Plus, trick or treat is 6pm - 8pm and Evan goes to bed at 7pm. Plus, he doesn't get the concept. Plus, he's not allowed to eat the candy. So, yeah. No neighborhood trick or treating. 

We did have office trick or treating though. Always a good time. Here are some crappy cell phone pictures to document the good times. 

My cubical neighbor admired my boy while
eating his rice cake and turkey sandwich.

Tracy taught E how to take candy...

and put it in his sack. 

Tracy is such a good friend. She loves Evan like he's her own kid. Well, maybe her own grandkid because she spoils him rotten. She was our first stop and Evan's sack was overflowing because she kept giving him more and more and more. That's definitely a grandma move.

 

Kim and Bob introduced E to some WPAFB
Educational Outreach Office aliens.

Mid-hallway break to check out his loot.

We tried to get a couple good shots when we got home. We weren't terribly successful. 

Quick trip outside... but the astronaut quickly turned into an elephant.

I got his costume on my trip to NYC. Since the Intrepid Museum got the space shuttle, they had tons of NASA stuff in their gift shop. It was cheap and Halloween was done in August. Score. 

Halloween was fun. He wasn't as into it as I would've liked...and David never is... but there's always next year.