A Smattering of Pics from Thanksgiving through Christmas

Here's a quick trip from Christmas, backwards to Thanksgiving. We had such a great time getting to see so many friends and family in November and December. Click here for more pictures from the holiday season. Also below are the debuts of our first Blogger videos! Happy New Year to all of you!

Tag, I'm It!

So I was "tagged" by my friend, Angela, today. In a blog-land sort of way, that is.

Here are the rules:
1. Choose the 4th picture folder on your computer
2. Choose the 4th picture
3. Explain your picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same

So I have to admit I cheated a bit. The 4th picture from my 4th folder was a really lame alligator shot from Animal Kingdom 5 years ago--NOTHING that would have been interesting to any of you!

So I decided instead to take the 4th picture from the 4th album in each of my "Trey" and "Baby Ethan" folders--with much better results!

Here is Trey at 3 months old--it's interesting to see a picture of him from that time as Ethan will be 3 months on Dec. 20 (which is coincidentally his dad's 40th birthday!)




And here's the picture from Ethan's folder of him with big brother Trey and Grandma--we've been so thankful for all her helpful visits this fall, and I get the feeling she's enjoyed the time with her grandsons!

So a number of my blogging friends have been tagged by other blogging friends in these last few rounds of blogging tag, which means that the following friends are the lucky remaining winners!
Christy & Chris Valentine
Amy & Ryan Christianson
Heidi & Ben Thomas
Dave & Liz Boerema

November 20, 2008

The Brothers


Uncle Joey and Baby Ethan

There's a smile! (or the closest thing to one that we've been able to catch so far)

Trey has loved the few times he's gotten to help feed baby brother!

Fall Fun

So Blogger's giving me a hard time uploading photos, but here's a preview of some fall pictures, and you can see rest here on our picasa page!


Fun at the Apple Orchard


Carving Pumpkins & the Petting Farm

2 and a half

So today Trey is officially 2 and a half! He's been asking if it's his birthday yet since he went to one of his little friend's birthday parties 2 weeks ago, so we thought "celebrating" today might be good rather than simply telling him to wait 6 months. He's been very excited to tell everyone it's his birthday, including everyone at the Dr.'s office today who would puzzedly look down at his chart when he said that until our explanation :)

Trey and Ethan both did great at the dr.--here are their 2 1/2 and 1 month old stats, respectively:

Trey-32 pounds, 1/2" shy of 3 feet, and 20 1/2" head circumference (95th percentile!)

Ethan-was 6 pounds, 2 ounces 2 weeks ago; now he's 7 pounds, 7 ounces!

Since Trey's 2 1/2, he got to go to McDonald's...all efforts to suggest an alternative place were quickly rebuffed.

And after naptime, Trey got to go to another one of his favorite places--to get a haircut! It was a bit shorter than Mom expected, but he still makes for a pretty cute 2 1/2 year old and big brother! Here he is post-haircut building a tower with daddy.

We're so grateful to God for the fun 2 1/2 years we've had so far with our Trey-Trey, and the month we've been able to enjoy Ethan, even though he was just due to be born this last Monday!

Two Boys

So today, after a fun morning at the apple orchard, Gra-Moo (Rand's mom's grandmotherly name, as her last name is Holstein) left to head back to California. Both of our moms have been a tremendous help the last 3 weeks as we've transitioned to a family of 4. Thank you so much to both of you!

Rand had to speak somewhere this evening, so this was Mommy's first evening home alone with both boys. I must say we had a splendid evening together full of alphabet blocks, 3-D glasses, and some nice snuggling on the couch while we watched a few minutes of some random Qubo cartoon about a tap-dancing horse. Splendid, that is, until we began to get ready for bed.

Trey had been quite agreeable about cleaning up his toys and getting PJs on, and when I asked him if he wanted to try to go on the potty he surprisingly said yes (it's normally more a challenge to encourage him to try). We ran, him diaper-less, to the bathroom, and he quickly ran back to the living room to put his toy on the coffee table. I went to retrieve him after only a few more seconds to find him sweetly saying, "I went pee-pee on this (pointing to brother sitting in the bouncy seat), and this (pointing to the rug), and this (the floor)..." You get the picture. Ah! What foreshadowing is this, I wonder, of my life to come?!

So, an hour and a half later, both precious boys are bathed (by necessity, after the incident), pajama-d, and sleeping in their beds. And I thought I should share (and save) this story by posting it here, which incidentally is helping me procrastinate cleaning up the mess from you-know-who. I must attend to that now, but hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures from this morning soon.

As Trey likes to say lately, cheers.

10/2/08

Pictures of the family at home...


More pictures on our Picasa page!