Picture Perfect

The past few years I have sent out Christmas cards with Evan's professional pictures on it and have used the website Shutterfly.com. This year Shutterfly is doing a special promotion - if you blog about their company and use a few key points, you receive 50 free cards. Sweet!!

So, here it goes:

Besides Christmas cards, I have also created calendars for our parents as a Christmas gift the past few years. For each month of the upcoming year, I put pictures from that month of the previous year. So, in January 2010, they were looking at pictures from January 2009. Pretty cool to see how much Evan has grown in the past year! What I love about Shutterfly's calendars is that you can choose different layouts for each month - anywhere from 1-10 or more pictures. Another option I have not used but really like is that you can also personalize the calendar grid by adding important dates. Here's a link to their calendars: http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

We recently had professional pictures taken of Rick, Evan, Luke and me, and I am in the process of choosing our Christmas cards on Shutterfly. I usually use a few of my favorite shots of Evan on our card but this year I am going to stick with 1 picture of our whole family. I thought it was a difficult decision narrowing down our 250 proofs from our photo shoot, and now I have to narrow all my card choices down to 1! Check some out: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards and http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards.

Thanks Shutterfly!

Cute Times Four

I've written many blogs about spending time with my BFF, Carrie, and her family. After we each had our first child about a year and a half apart, we always said how great it would be to be pregnant at the same time. Well, mother nature granted our wish. Last December, Carrie found out she was pregnant with #2, and 2 weeks later I found out I was pregnant! Our due dates were 3 weeks apart - crazy! It was wonderful this time around having someone to share the experience with. We emailed quite often discussing how we were feeling, or what was happening in each of our pregnancies. On August 31st, Carrie gave birth to Kaia Beth, and exactly 2 weeks later, on September 14th, I had Luke Alexander.

Since their birth, I couldn't wait to see our babies together. This weekend, Carrie and her family drove up here to visit us, and it was a great visit. Kaia is absolutely adorable and has the cutest smile! Kaia and Luke did watch each other, and when placed on the floor next to each other Kaia enjoyed grabbing Luke's ear. We'll continue to have them get to know each other since Carrie and I are already planning their big, fat, Greek wedding!

Even though Evan and Brett (her oldest) have seen each other many times, they always acted shy around each other until about an hour before it was time to leave. I think maturity finally kicked in, because this time within a few minutes they were running around and having a blast! Evan definitely took on the role as the older one, and Brett was very interested in doing what Evan was doing or saying. At one point they were upstairs and were very quiet, so I checked on them assuming they were up to something. Nope, they were sitting on the air mattress reading books together. So sweet! But, their favorite thing to do was run around our kitchen/living room/dining room in a big circle, and by the end of the night they were ready to fall over from exhaustion. So much to look forward to with each of our future visits!

The future Mr. and Mrs.

Our 4 cute kiddos

2 Months Old

Luke was 2 months old a few days ago. We went to the pediatrician today for a check up, and she said that he's doing great. She was happy with how well he was making eye contact with her. They gave him 2 shots and an oral vaccination, and he cried for just a short time and was calm again. Such a good baby!

Here's his stats:
Height - 23 inches (75th percentile)
Weight - 10 lbs 15 ounces (50th percentile)
Head circumference - 39 cm (25th percentile)

Just for fun here's Evan's stats at that age:
Height - 22 1/2 inches
Weight - 11 lbs 10 ounces
Head - 39 1/4 cm





Oops, and I just realized I never did a 1 month posting, so here it is:

Height - 21 1/2 inches
Weight - 8 lbs, 18 ounces
Head - 37 cm

Just Call Me George

When Evan started preschool in September, each child in his class was given a paper apple name tag that they were supposed to wear for the first few weeks of school. A few times, Evan needed some encouragement to wear his, so that's when Pappou stepped in. He told Evan, "If you don't wear your name tag, your teachers won't know what to call you. Maybe they'll start calling you George!" This became a running joke between Evan and my dad. A few weeks ago I figured his teachers knew his name, so I didn't put on his name tag. When he entered his classroom he told his teacher, "I don't have my name tag on so you'll have to call me George." His teacher, Mrs. Hanson, thought it was hilarious, especially since Evan barely talks at school. She told us that she went home that night and told her whole family the story. This become an inside joke between Evan and his teacher. Then last week, Mrs. Hanson said "Hi Evan" to him, and another student stepped in and said, "That's not Evan. His name is George!"

And speaking of school, here's pictures of Evan on his first field trip to the farm. He was not being very cooperative for the camera.

Riding the bus

Refusing to look at the camera and refusing to pet any of the animals

Smile!

My first picture of Luke smiling!

Trick or Treat

As Evan gets older, we find ourselves looking more and more forward to holidays. It's nice to see that he understands what is going to happen and is excited in anticipation of it. That was definitely the case for Halloween. He picked out his own costume (which actually is a bit of a bummer for me that I don't have control over that anymore!). At first he wanted to be a dog, then a rock star, and he finally decided on Buzz Lightyear. Evan was lucky and was able to wear his costume twice. The first time was for the party at his preschool. The afternoon began with a performance for the parents. The kids sang songs and did some fingerplays. Of course Evan just stood there and did not participate, but he was one adorable Buzz! Then the parents left and the kids stayed at school for their party. On Halloween we headed to my parents' neighborhood and Evan had a blast going trick or treating. I was very proud that he did say "thank you" for all of his candy! And of course, I can't leave out Luke. He was dressed as a very cute black cat and slept through most of the excitement of trick or treating!

Evan's Class - he's in the front row on the left

He gave me a huge smile when he spotted me!

Evan with one of his teachers - Mrs. Polk

On Halloween

My boys!