Helping Mommy and Daddy Decorate for Christmas

This long weekend I not only had my second Thanksgiving and my first birthday, but I also supervised some serious work around the house. 

Here I am instructing Daddy on how to put up the tree.

Then I got to work showing Mommy how to vacuum.  I was more interested in the vacuum than the tree. 

Finally I had to show Mommy where this ornament really should have been placed.

Evan's First Birthday!

Evan turned one on Friday.  We had a great day of hanging out and playing.  It was a great day for a birthday!

So what is Evan like at 12 months?  He loves to smile and giggle.  He loves to be naked...whenever you strip him down on the changing table, he kicks his legs up and down and just giggles away.  He loves trips to the park and the zoo where he loves to look at the birds.  He still LOVES books.  We've started to leave some on the floor with his toys and he'll go over to them and pick one up.  That is our cue that it is time to read.  It is the one time that he'll sit still on our laps.  His favorite books right now are anything touch and feel.  He really loves that "That's Not My..." series...I think we have 6 or 7 of them!  Right now we are reading some Christmas books too.  His favorite toy is still his car ramp.  Everything is fair game to go down the car ramp...even Baby Jesus from his Fisher Price Nativity set!  His favorite food is definitely still cheese, but pickles are probably a close second.  He loves snacky foods like Goldfish and cheese puffs.  He always has to have something in his hand when you are feeding him...probably because he wants to feed himself so badly!  He's only got two teeth so our menu is still rather limited to purees and things he can gum.  Evan has a little stranger anxiety right now and plays shy whenever a stranger is around...that is until he warms up to them.  He's crawling all over the place and pulling up on his knees.  He has good balance and is an expert crawler.  We've only had a few tears as a result of crawling thus far.  Evan has two teeth on the bottom although we can see the outline of the ones on top so they can't be too far away.  He's not a big fan of having his teeth brushed, but we definitely sing the Raffi song while we brush.  He's still a little dude...only 18.5 lbs.  That puts him in the 5th percentile with weight and little higher in height (I'll have more accurate numbers in a week after our dreaded 12 month doctor's visit).  Our pediatrician is not concerned because he's a healthy little guy who likes to eat, so we're trying not to worry too much either. 

Here is a picture from last weekend with all the balloons from his party.  Would you believe that they are still all up over a week later?

Here he is on Friday morning opening up his birthday present from Uncle Chris, Auntie Jenn, Cole and Jayden.  He's awesome at opening presents. 

In celebration of his 365th day, he had a pickle.

And made the famous pickle face in his crown!

Yummy...don't you want a pickle too???

Swinging at the Park

I love to go swinging at the park.  I smile and giggle the whole time.  Here's Daddy pushing me.  

Wow now that is a some crazy hair...

Mommy usually takes me down the slide a few times too!

Evan's Second Thanksgiving!

Since Evan made his arrival last Thanksgiving day, here are some pictures from his SECOND Thanksgiving. 

Giving Mommy big smiles in his Turkey PJ's.  After all, when you are born on Thanksgiving, you must be a turkey!

Daddy made Evan these really cool head gears for the special holiday.  Here is our little dude as a pilgrim. 

And our little Indian. 

Pilgrims ate cheese puffs at the first Thanksgiving, right???

And everyone ends their Thanksgiving meal with a pickle, right???

After his Thanksgiving meal and a nap, he's ready to watch some football and play!

My First Birthday Party

Mommy and Daddy hosted my first birthday party in my backyard on Saturday afternoon.   We had a lot of people come celebrate.  I'm not sure if it was a celebration of me turning one or of Mommy and Daddy surviving the first year!

Here I am with my cake. 

OK I'm really not sure about this.  It is sticking to my hands.

I managed to get it all over my face and really close to my eye.

OK I'm done.  I'm not a fan of cake. 

Better now. I've got Goldfish and veggies.  Who would have ever thought?  Maybe they make a giant Goldfish cake?

I'm actually pretty good at opening presents. 

Here we go....

Exploring and Playing

Evan has definitely taken to crawling quite fast and quite well.  I would say we went from army crawler to expert crawler in about 10 days.  I guess with Evan, if he's late doing something it probably just means when he does start to do it, he's going to be superb at it. 

 OK don't show this one to CPS...another thing we've figured out is that as soon as you encourage him not to do something, he is much more likely to want to do it.

He can put these suckers all down in about 10 seconds.  He can manage to get 2 of them up on a routine basis.  Still working on those fine motor skills for the other 3. 

Awww...ready for bed.

Another awwww...resting with Grandpa Max.  Grandma Candi and Grandpa Max came to spend the first weekend of November with Evan.

This book has been in the must read (and chew!) every day rotation for about 6 months now.

Grandma and Grandpa bought him these super cool instruments in Maine.  He LOVES them. They are pretty awesome!

One of his latest tricks is to get on his knees and put all of his body weight into pulling down the drill lever on his workbench. 

And he's off...he's started to follow us into different rooms and as you can see, we've moved the coffee table out of his way.  I figure we'll have fewer tears that way.

If there are any crumbs on this rug by the sink, he'll pick them off the rug and put them in his mouth.  Yummo!

The sheer joy on both of their faces in this one can't be beat.  They are doing a sprint in the house.

Pickles!

One Friday when Evan and I met Brian for lunch out, we discovered that Evan loves pickles.  He makes the funniest faces.  So pickles and lemons are added to the list for after dinner treats!