Watch your mouth!

Christopher has been mimicking what Jon and I say for awhile now. It used to be that he would occasionally say one or two words out of a phrase, but now he'll copy everything we say. I call him a little parrot. Well, yesterday Jon and I got a good laugh when Christopher was running away from me instead of coming to get in the car like he was supposed to. I finally caught him and in exasperation said, "You're driving me NUTS!" (without thinking anything of it). He immediately looked at me and said, "Drivin' me NUTS!" exactly as I had just said it. Jon and I burst into laughter. Jon then looked at me and said, "It's a good thing we don't swear!" We definitely have to watch what we say these days!

1 Month

My baby is one month old today! I can't believe a month has already come and gone since Andrew was born. Time flies when you're having fun. Unfortunately his sleeping non-stop and never crying wore off after he was about a week old. Fortunately he's still a sweet baby. He does great at night (knock on wood!) but during the day he will NOT sleep unless he's either a) on the go, so he's moving and forced to be in his carseat or b) sleeping on and/or snuggling with Mommy or Daddy. This kid will sleep for a matter of minutes if we put him down in his bed (amazingly at night he'll go for several hours), but he can sleep for a couple hours if one of us holds him or lets him sleep on us. Hopefully he'll figure it all out sometime, but I won't complain because he does so well during the night. He doesn't particularly enjoy his swing (it must run in the family - Chris hated it too) and he'll tolerate his bouncy chair for short periods of time. Basically, he just wants to be held (he doesn't ask much at all!). Today he smiled at me a few times and pretty much melted my heart. I know he still has no control over it, but it's so fun to see his little personality begin to develop!

As I was snapping pictures of Andrew this morning, Christopher got a little jealous and wanted to lay down next to Andrew. He started saying, "Christopher too," which amazed me because he NEVER wants to hold still for getting his picture taken. He stayed on the floor next to Andrew and let me take TONS of pictures of the two of them. It was pretty miraculous! I thought it was cute that he wanted to get in on the photo shoot!

This picture cracked me up because they both had almost the exact same expression (with their mouths). Apparently Andrew wants to be just like his big brother already!

I really don't think they're going to look much like each other...

But I'm pretty sure they're two of the cutest kids around (and I'm not biased at all...)!

Bean Museum

Yesterday we took a field trip to the Monte L Bean Museum. I haven't been there in years and I had never taken Christopher there. He thought it was FANTASTIC! First we watched a live reptile show, where he touched a real lizard and snake. I was amazed because we've tried to get him to do that before in a different setting and he wanted no part of it. This time he thought it was so cool. He is still occasionally saying, "Touch lizard (which sounds more like wee-zard)" and "touch snake."

Then we wandered around and looked at the animals. He was fascinated. He kept running from one to the next and gasping in joy as he shouted out what he saw. At first I was thinking, "Man, we really need to take this kid to a zoo!" and then I thought, actually the museum was even better because the animals were so close he could clearly see them all (sometime zoo animals hide or are too far away for the little ones to even figure out where to look). It was a great activity for the kids (and the moms too - we got to visit with each other and the kids weren't driving us crazy because they had fun!).

Chris and his buddy, Ethan


Christopher's other best buddy, Lindsey


He loved roaring at the wild animals!

What a fun day!

Halloween Fun!

A week ago we took our first real "family outing" and headed to the pumpkin patch. Christopher had a ball. He loved seeing all the pumpkins and wanted them all when it came time for him to choose (he got to pick out two, but kept trying to change his mind and find bigger or better ones).

His favorite was the "little pumpkin" - a tiny one just big enough for him to carry around and play with.

Andrew also enjoyed our little field trip. He snuggled/slept on Daddy the whole time!

At the pumpkin patch, they had a little corn maze that we took Christopher through. He enjoyed seeing all the fun decorations and kept saying, "STUCK! Corn maze..."

He found a dried ear of corn and loved pulling the kernels off and throwing them like confetti!

Christ got tired of all the walking we did and I could only hold him for so long. Thankfully Daddy did double-duty (Chris on top and Andrew on the front) - he's pretty much SUPERMAN!

But of all the things we could have possibly seen or done at Pumpkinland, guess what was the most exciting of all?!

DIGGERS!

That's right...there was construction a little ways off and Christopher was absolutely fascinated by the giant diggers. Once he had seen them he didn't care a thing about the pumpkins, corn maze, or playground. He just kept begging to go back and watch the diggers again.

On Halloween, we enjoyed our ward "Trunk or Treat" (whoever came up with that idea was brilliant - TONS of candy handed out quickly and easily without having to trek all over a huge neighborhood)!

Chris is usually very shy about talking to people, but I told him that if he wanted candy he had to say, "Trick or treat" and also tell them "Thank you" afterward. Amazingly if there is candy involved, he's quite agreeable - he talked to every person that gave him candy! He loved trunk-or-treating. After each car he'd say, "More trick or treat...more candy!"

All in all it's been a fun week!

Birthday Boy!

Tuesday was Christopher's 2nd birthday! I can't believe how quickly he is growing up...
Here are a few highlights from our celebrations:

Opening presents was fun...the only difficult part was that he wanted to stop and play with each toy right after opening it.

I made Christopher a Thomas the Train cake with two new trains on it. I lit the two candles and was trying to get him to blow them out, but he was so concerned about getting the trains off and playing with them that he nearly burned his arm off while trying. I finally decided to blow the candles out for him and removed the trains. He sobbed hysterically while I took them to wash the frosting off the bottoms of the trains so that he could have them. Needless to say, the trains were a big success (more so than the cake itself...)!

The main part of Christopher's birthday present was an expansion set of tracks and several new trains. He only had Thomas (and recently Grandma Lewis brought him James).

At nursery in our ward, they have a Gordon train and for the last 2 months Christopher has literally asked to play with it EVERY DAY! When we go to church, he knows that is the day he gets to play with Gordon so he asks every 5 minutes throughout sacrament meeting if it's time to play with Gordon yet. We decided he needed to get a Gordon train of his own. His other grandma stepped in and shelled out the RIDICULOUS price they charge for these silly little trains so that Christopher's lifelong dream could come true. When he opened it up, he gasped with joy and started chanting, "Gordon train, Gordon train!" He has spent countless HOURS the past couple of days connecting ALL of his trains into one giant train and driving them around our coffee table. This birthday was definitely a success!

Aside from that, we had his 2 year check-up this week. He is now 36 inches tall (88th percentile) and I'm not sure how much he weighs because he was too busy throwing a tantrum to get an accurate weight (I think it's somewhere around 28 lbs).

And since we're talking stats, we also "celebrated" Andrew's two weeks of life with his check-up (I've spent A LOT of time at the BYU Health Center this week!). His head measured 14 inches (45th percentile), length was 21.5 inches (76th percentile) and he weighed 8 lbs 15 oz (52nd percentile). Looks like I'm going to have some TALL boys!

Happy Two Years to Christopher & Happy Two Weeks to Andrew!

Visitors

Last week Jon's Mom and sister came out from California to visit, help out, and mostly to meet Andrew. They did a FANTASTIC job of keeping Christopher happy and entertained. In fact, they did so well that I think he has been bored with me since they left (he's been super whiny the last few days!). Here are a few of the things we did while they were here:

We took the boys on their first walk together. Andrew slept through it and Chris LOVED the fact that his baby brother was right next to him (I have to admit...I had visions of Chris poking Andrew's eyes out or some other catastrophe because he's within Christopher's reach throughout the whole walk, but thankfully all went smoothly!)

Andrew got his first bath. He really wasn't a big fan, but who would be when you're cold, naked, and not allowed to be immersed in the water?!

We got a couple naps in while Grandma kept Christopher out of our hair. My favorite part of this picture is the two blankets on top of Jon...those are Christopher's "blankies" that he sleeps with. He saw Daddy and Andrew sleeping and decided they needed some covers - how thoughtful! :)

Christopher got to have LOTS of outdoor fun with Grandma! She's such a good sport and even went down all the little slides (the kinds that are really not meant for grown-up size bums)!

Thanks for visiting, Grandma & Aunt April! Come back any time!

The world with 2 kids...

It's still pretty unreal to me that we have two kids. Sometimes it doesn't seem any different than before (when Andrew sleeps for long stretches and I don't have to worry about anyone but Christopher) and other times I feel like I might go insane and I begin to wonder what I've gotten myself into (Andrew is hungry and screaming while Christopher is needing attention and starts destroying and throwing everything in his path). Hopefully we'll figure it all out one of these days. Overall, I really can't complain because Andrew pretty much sleeps ALL THE TIME and rarely cries at all. I'm sure it will all change soon enough, but until then I just have to enjoy what a sweet baby he is.

Here's what we've been up to:

A little of this...


A LOT of this...



Kisses & hugs


...and plenty of snuggles...
Don't they look like best buddies already?!