Christmas 2008!

Well my second Christmas was fantastic (except the sitting on Santa's lap part). We started off with Christmas Eve dinner (Bouillabaisse and homemade pasta Daddy and Pappi made). Mamma let me open my Christmas Eve present - new jammies to wait for Santa in. Grammi and Pappi one-up ed Mamma and got me a bike. I love it!

I started Christmas day off by coming downstairs and seeing my new red wagon, which I LOVE! Thanks Grandpa Moose.

I refused to get our of my wagon, so I opened my stocking from Santa while sitting in it.

Then I wanted to play with my new magnets from the wagon, so Mamma wheeled me over to the fridge and I played for quite a long time with those magnets. Mamma and Dadda were so happy, they kept saying that this was the best $.88 they had ever spent.

We went off to church, where I loudly pointed out the clock and declared I was ready to go Bye-Bye. Everyone around me laughed, but Mamma and Dadda made me stay the whole time. After breakfast and a nap, we went over to Grammi and Pappi's house for some more presents. I have to be just like Daddy, so Mamma let me have some "coppe" (coffee = warm chocolate milk) while we opened.

mmmm. Aunt Sarah, Uncle Tad, and Clare got me some cool train stuff and this awesome pillowcase for my new big boy bed. Elmo, my favorite.

I got some other cool books, videos, games, etc. and had a fantastic time, especially when Daddy, Pappi and Mamma played wii American Idol. Daddy was the winner, but I thought Mamma totally rocked.

Dinner was a feast, and I was tired from the day, so we decided to go home. Well I guess Mamma and Dadda decided to go home when I started screaming... They said I had enough.

The next day I opened a few more gifts from some very generous people. I got some awesome slippers and U.S. puzzle so I could see where my God parents were every few years when they move. Bri Bri and Ali are always so good to me

The Brunaughs got me a toy dog to remind me of Bailey (Baa-eee), their chocolate lab, which I love! He now sleeps with me in my big boy bed.

Mamma let me try out my new finger paints, and Dadda taught me some techniques. I think I did pretty good.

And Saturday was Christmas again with Uncle Danny and Aunt Claudia. They got me ELMO (Melmo). He is awesome!

I was pretty tired from all the excitement, so I rested with Papi. Christmas is fantastic and I can't wait till next year when I have a little brother to share it with.

Little Tough Man

Everett is getting very "busy" and seems to be having a lot of accidents lately. Today (with daddy) he managed to get a fat and bloody lip, but he didn't cry.

He is also starting to have an interest in the potty and has been using it every morning. I will refrain from posting a picture of that so he doesn't hate mommy later (plus Daddy said no). Potty training has increased his vocabulary (toot, poop, potty, uh oh, pee pee).

Christmas in New York

Here is a quick post about our trip to New York City with Eric and Katie, two fantabulous people. The trip was a lot of fun...although there were a TON of people. The highlight of the trip for Everett was seeing a huge ELMO and riding the Choo Choo. The highlights for the rest of us were

1) The thousands of random people dressed as Santa and meeting up at various locations

2) Transvestite Santa

3) Rudolph getting a ticket from New York's finest for swearing in public

4) The 7 foot man dressed as an Elf

Only in New York

The Christmas Tree

This weekend we went to get our Christmas tree. I had intended on cutting our own but after finding out I had to pay someone $40 to cut my own tree down I had second thoughts. After a bit of hunting we finally found a reasonable place and picked out a tree. We though we got a small one but as the branches began to drop we were left with a very wide tree. Oh well, it is pretty and the price was right. Here are a few pictures from picking it out and decorating it.

Meeting Santa at the Tree farm and ringing the bell.

The annual Untangling of the Lights.

The tree up and decorated.

Hiking in Devil's Hopyard

Yesterday, Amy and I took Everett and Napolean hiking. Here are a few pictures we took along with a video of us swinging on a vine.

Everett gets a Big Boy Bed

So we found out we are having a new boy, which means we don't have to buy much in anticipation. We decided we wanted to have the boys share a room (for a lot of reasons) and so we bought a toddler bed for Everett - the crib would be for the baby. We figured we would just let it stay in the room for a while before we switched him over, but he was soooo excited, he just went for it. He yelled "bed" (sounds like beh), climbed in for story time, laid down and slept, all on the first night. Nap time was a bit more interesting because mommy put him to bed before he was really tired enough to sleep (he was too excited about being in the bed) and he escaped a few times, just to giggle and run back to bed. So it has been a few days and he still yells "beh" every time he sees it, and shows all the visitors his new digs. And I thought this parenting thing was going to be hard....kidding. Here are some pics.

Love, Amy

One More Halloween Picture

This year, Everett went as a monkey and it was his first year walking to houses. He had a great time. Here is a quick picture.

...and here he is with his first piece of candy, a lollipop.

Everett's First Pumpkin Carving

This past week my parents came up to visit and one thing we did was carve pumpkins. This was Everett's first experience with this and we thought he would dig right in. It turns out he doesn't like to get his hands gunky so he used a spoon the whole time to hollow out the pumpkin. At the bottom you can see the finished pumpkin, a Super E, just like last year. I think it has become a tradition.

Everett Uses Tools

Check out this video shot by Amy the other day. Here you can see how well Everett uses a spoon to eat some cheerios. Make sure you listen for the question at the end.

What did I do???

So, I decided to cut Everett's hair while Daddy was playing his new favorite sport - wii golf. At first the clippers worked well, but then there was a fatal error and they buzzed his head. There was no turning back....
Gasp!

Homecoming

Everett had a blast at homecoming and got to spend some good quality time with his Godparents Ali and Brian. We hope we can see more of them soon. Pictures speak best, so enjoy! Love, Amy

On second thought, maybe we should reserve visitation until he is a bit older....

Updates

As you can see from the ticker on the right Amy is 15 weeks along now. Everything is going well. She is healthy and the new baby is healthy and growing. I was able to feel it move a little for the first time the other night. Amy has been feeling it moving around for about a week and a half now. She says it feels like there is a butterfly in her belly. We haven't made any progress on names yet but we haven't gone any deeper into it than just shouting them out and immediately shooting them down.

Everett is getting bigger by the minute. He is adding more and more words to his vocabulary. He has become very good at mimicking sounds so he can repeat most things we say. His newest words are CAR and UH OH. He says PLEASE now whenever he wants something (sounds like PIECE) and he also grabs us by the hand to take us to what he wants.

We have successfully gotten rid of the pacifier for all but when he is in his crib sleeping and sometimes in the car. We have also switched him over to cloth diapers to preserve the environment a bit.

This weekend Everett's Godparents, Brian and Ali will be visiting from Florida. It should be a lot of fun, pictures to follow.

Latest Ultrasound and Info

I guess it is about time I stop letting Everett dominate this blog and start writing about his younger sibling to come. Last week Amy and I drove down to Yale Medical Center for her ultrasound. This is still one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I have posted the pictures below. It looks like everything is going well, the baby is perfectly healthy, about 5 inches long to the tip of its tail, and genetically at very low risk for any nasty diseases. All in all it was a great visit and we got to see the new baby. Now this ultrasound was done at 12 weeks so they tell us that they are not really sure if it is going to be a boy or a girl. I must say that we have all been thinking girl for the last number of weeks but we saw something here that just might mean we need to take another look at our boy name list. I guess we will know better at the next ultrasound, at 20 weeks.

Disney

I broke in to post a blog since Clint is busy. I wanted to post some pictures of our Disney trip in August with the Venn family. What a blast!! Disney is pretty tiring....so much so that Everett fell asleep on the haunted mansion ride.