Best Buds

Over the weekend, Carrie, Steve and Brett came to visit us. I can't believe how much Brett, who is now 10 months old, has grown since we saw them last on New Year's Eve! We were anxious to see how Evan would react to another child playing with his toys in his own territory, and overall he really did well. A few times he did say "My truck," but he didn't tear any toys out of Brett's hands, so we were happy.

Of course we snapped away with our cameras, but I don't think either of us had a picture with both boys smiling!

See Brett, you just swing your leg over like this.

Please stop taking our pictures. Can't you see we're busy?
The funny thing was that both Brett and Evan were wearing hooded Old Navy sweatshirts. Carrie and I are going to submit their picture so they can be the new faces of Old Navy. Look for them on your next advertisement!

Success!

Once Evan turned 2 years old, we started introducing him to the idea of the "potty." My intentions were to get him used to it and then do our actual training over the summer when I don't have to work and there's less clothes to worry about getting dirty. Right now we have 2 potty chairs and the Elmo video. We ask him several times a day if he wants to try and use the potty. If he says no, we go with that, and that is typically the answer we will get from him. The only aspect he was really interested in was flushing the toilet, but we kept telling him he could only flush it if he went potty. Recently, however, before bedtime he will actually sit on the potty, which I think is really one of his many stall tactics to avoid going to bed. Tonight was different though. After his bath he actually peed on his Elmo potty! He was so excited to help empty it into the toilet and flush, then he sat on it again and went a second time! Now I'm wondering if we should keep doing what we've been doing or try to start with the actual training?

Evan Do It!

Evan wants to do everything by himself. His favorite new phrase is, "Evan do it." He will repeat it endlessly until you let him do whatever it is that he wants to do...open a door, find something to eat, unwrap a Hershey's Kiss (he eats 1 every night after dinner), change DVDs, brush his teeth, etc, etc, etc. Sometimes he really can be helpful. He unloads silverware from the dishwasher and puts it in the drawer. But, other times it is far from convenient. Currently he is insisting on turning on my digital camera, and he is not happy that I am telling him no. He really surprises me though by how much he can do on his own!

Using my Swiffer duster to clean the family room

He even moved the picture frames to dust underneath them.

Drinking from a juice box - he was so proud of himself!

Color "Names" and Pe Pies

We've been working on identifying colors with Evan for quite a while now. He used to only know purple and yellow, but he has been doing so much better lately. This morning while he was painting, he kept picking up each of the colors and saying something, but I could not understand what it was. Then I realized he was saying the Wiggles character's name that is associated with each color... red was Murray, yellow was Sam, blue was Anthony, and unfortunately there was no purple paint for Jeff. Actually, Evan's obsession with The Wiggles has fizzled out a bit. His new obsession is Toy Story - I wonder what will be next?

Last night Rick was at a concert with his brother, so after running errands with Evan I decided to pick up McDonald's for dinner. We rarely eat food from there and really push fruits and veggies with Evan, but every once in a while it's a nice change. Evan loves french fries, so when we were at the store I kept telling him "when we're all done we'll get chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner". Once we were in the car after shopping, Evan kept asking "Mommy, Pe pies? Pe Pies?" Translation: Mommy, french fries? French fries? He was so happy when we were finally home and able to eat dinner. The only problem now - guess what Evan asked for first thing this morning.... "Pe Pies!"

Sorry there are no pictures to post. My camera battery is drained and my charger is at school...some to come soon.

Also, a big congratulations to Kate, Joe, and big brother Jack on the birth of their little girl, Amelie Isabelle, who was born on Friday the 13th!

Sweet Dreams

While I was pregnant with Evan, I started singing the Dixie Chicks' song Sweet Dreams to him. Once he was born I continued singing it to him almost every night before I put him down to bed. When he was an infant, he would just go with it and did not seem to react. But as he started getting a little older, he would smile when I started singing it and sometimes say "again" when I was done singing. There are some nights where he doesn't want to hear it, and that's OK. There are days where I am not in the mood to hear certain songs. In the past week or two, though, he has started trying to sing along with me. It is the sweetest thing hearing his little voice saying some of the words with me.

Here is the video of the Dixie Chicks (well, just Natalie) singing the song at one of their concerts. I actually went to that concert here in Chicago. It was the first time I had ever heard the song and immediately fell in love with it.

Cooking Class

Last Monday was MLK Day, which meant no school for me! I had been wanting to make playdough with Evan for a long time, so it was a perfect day for it. He really enjoyed adding all the ingredients and stirring it with a spoon, since he is always wanting to help me when I'm cooking. When the playdough was ready he immediately starting smushing it with his hands and playing with all the playdough tools. He kept saying "Yay playdough!"

Adding the flour

Stirring

Wow!

Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

2 1/2 C Flour

1/2 C Salt

1 T baby powder

3 T oil

2 packets Kool-aid - the ones without sugar added, any flavor

1 1/2 C boiling water

Stir all ingredients together. You'll have to keep adding more flour (sometimes more than a cup) until the playdough is no longer sticky.

Winter Blues

This has been a very long winter, and it's still only January. If it's not snowing, it's been extremely cold. What hasn't helped is that for the past week and a half Evan and I have been battling bad colds. Needless to say, Evan was trapped inside our house for about a week since he was too sick to go to our sitter's house. This weekend he was finally feeling better, but he was extremely crabby. We're guessing a lot of it was that he was just bored and going stir crazy. Yesterday, on a whim, we decided to take Evan to Odyssey Fun World, which is comparable to a Chuck E Cheese with various video games, mini kiddie rides, etc. They also have Mini golf and other activities outside which will be fun once the weather gets nice again. This was a VERY good decision that we made. Evan had a blast. The best part, besides the fact that there were hardly any other kids there, was that Evan enjoyed all the little kiddie rides without even putting money in it! He was content just sitting in them and "driving". We also spent a good amount of time in the play area with all of the tubes, climbing nets, and ball pits. Evan did really well trying out all of the new climbing activities since he can often be leary of new things.

Evan's expression upon seeing the first ride inside

Crawling through one of the first tunnels

Throwing a ball in the ball pit

Going down the slide on his tummy

Crawling around with daddy