Thanksgiving and the Zoo

On Thanksgiving grandma was trying to get Andrew and Sam to sing Jingle Bells. Sorry, this isn't the best picture, she's helping him ring the bells. This is Andrew's 3rd outfit out of 4 for the afternoon!



Our trip to the zoo with Suzy and Kelsey the day after Thanksgiving. Being Black Friday there weren't many people there, they were all shopping. And it was a little wet and cold.



Andrew and mommy in the cave.





Andrew showing mommy the tunnel to go see the meerkats.





Jana and Andrew Suzy and Kelsey




The fish


Kelsey and Andrew


The sharks were a big hit!



So was climbing on the stairs :)



Our friend Kelsey! 16 1/2 months, I love those ponytails! She is just too adorable.

The sickies

I got sick AGAIN this week. This time with a croup-like virus. I thought only small children got that!? After not feeling like even getting out of the bed for a couple of days I went to the doctor on Wednesday and they gave me steroids to reduce the swelling. I had a fever and a horrible sore throat and cough. I was supposed to go to work on Thanksgiving but I had to call in sick, there was no way I could go in that way. On Thanksgiving I managed to get out of bed and go lay on my in-laws couch for a couple of hours and eat dinner. I pretty much got out of bed to do a couple small outings on Friday and Saturday and then go back to bed.



Andrew however started to get a fever on Wednesday night too. He just had a little cough on Thanksgiving, but then he didn't enjoy the meal too much. Well, he did enjoy it on the way down I think. He threw up three times, we thought he was coughing really hard and that made him throw up, but not after the 2nd and 3rd time. We got him some Pedialyte on the way home. He coughed a little, but slept through the night.



If I had my druthers I probably would have stayed in bed yesterday too. But our friends Bryan & Suzy and their daughter Kelsey come from Spokane every year for Thanksgiving and it's our tradition to get together with them, we don't see them again usually until 4th of July. Bryan spent the afternoon buying sheet music at a big music store in downtown Tacoma so the rest of us braved the wet and cold to go to the zoo for a couple of hours, it was fun though.



Andrew was very tired at bedtime but he slept most of the night in his big boy bed last night! Yeah Andrew!! He usually sleeps on the floor or in his playpen. He woke up with stridor and a barking cough once but I got him to calm down and go back to sleep. He only fell out of bed once at about 6:00. But he's still asleep now. I've been up since 4:00!! I had a coughing fit and then couldn't go back to sleep and hubby was snoring. :(

The little chef......and the 'poopy' beans

I know I've mentioned Andrew loves to cook with daddy. He usually always helps him cook breakfast and then if there is anything else to stir. He comes downstairs every morning saying "panpakes, panpakes (his version of pancakes)." He helps daddy stir and pour the batter and then when they're in the pan he says 'bubble, pop' and tells daddy when they're ready to be flipped. But Friday night last week (the 21st) we were having soft tacos and daddy thought it would be easier for Andrew to eat a quesadilla so he let him make his own little quesadilla. Andrew was very excited and he did a great job! He thought it was delicious!

First he put on chicken and tomatoes (he definitely didn't get the taste for tomatoes from mommy)

Then cheese!


Yum!

The final masterpiece before daddy cooked it up.

He did keep saying the beans looked liked 'poopy' though. Daddy mixed black beans in with the refried beans. They tasted good, but they did bear a striking resemblance. Needless to say, Andrew didn't eat much of that. :)

Last week

I don't have many pictures from the last couple of weeks.

On a good note, Andrew behaved himself very well at the library last week. He usually runs away and thinks it's the funniest thing ever. Even though we discuss that he's not supposed to do it. Usually we go in and play with puzzles and stay for a while but we were late home for dinner because we had stopped late in the afternoon to see his buddy Ethan. He needed an Ethan-fix, he missed him. I told him we couldn't play and we could only take our movie and return it and pick up our book. He was so good that the librarian gave him 2 stickers to take home and put on his sticker chart.

He's also been using the potty occasionally. Last Friday (not yesterday, we've been sick) before we went to a playdate at Ethan's house he went #1 and #2 again (2nd time). Yeah Andrew!!!

Andrew's shiners

I forgot about Andrew's shiners. It looked like he was wearing eyeliner for about a week and a half, you could especially see it when he closed his eye. He's becoming more daring about climbing on things. Like at the mall play area.

The day before (the 10th) though mommy got to go to a movie, lunch, and shopping with a friend. Andrew joined us in the afternoon when daddy had to go to school. He was pretty good, not so thrilled with mommy trying on clothes though. As a reward, and it was dinner time, I took him to McDonald's for dinner. The one by us has a play area that is more toddler-friendly. He loves to climb up and go down the little slide. Then there are big chunky steps that go from the top of the dinosaur down his tail but the walls on the sides of it end and there are two more stairs that curve around and I think Andrew thought he could turn and get off (or his rubber boots made him trip). Anyway, he landed head first and was screaming. It was turning bright red and starting to form a purple welt. Another mom was very sweet and went and asked for a plastic bag and put ice in it. He let me put it on his face a few times but not for very long.

By the time we were scheduled for family pictures (the 20th), it was pretty well gone....but a few days later daddy took him to the library and he fell off one of the little chairs and banged the opposite cheekbone right on the table and got another bruise. You can probably see him sporting that one in some Thanksgiving pictures. :)

Oh, such a little boy. I guess they're supposed to get bumps and bruises. :)

More pictures

I know what you're thinking right...more pictures, why would we need more pictures!

But we were getting Bouma family pictures of the whole family. Last Thursday night (the 20th) we went back to Penney's to get a big group family picture. It was hard finding a night when everybody could be there. I think Andrew did better than the grownups. He smiled in all the pictures. Uncle Tim blinked in one and was making a funny face in another one. I can't show you, we don't have them back yet. Andrew even wore his fireman boots in the picture, we didn't want to make him mad for pictures by making him wear his dress shoes. :) Andrew did get ice cream as a reward for being good for pictures.

We took a family picture by the Christmas display for our Christmas card but I won't show that here, you'll have to wait for it to come in the mail. :)

The play area

Sorry I haven't posted anything in the last few weeks, we've been busy and sick. This post is from the 11th but today is actually Thanksgiving Day! I have a nasty croup-like virus and Andrew is starting to get a cough too.

Two weeks ago daddy didn't have school on Veteran's day so we hung out with him for the day. We went up to the Super Mall to walk around and go to their play area because it wasn't very nice outside. The play area is really nice but there were too many kids!! Mostly too many big kids that didn't watch out for the littler kids, and those were the parents that were paying absolutely no attention to their kids or what they were doing. That annoys me like nothing else. I don't care if kids go up the stairs past Andrew to go down the slide when he's being really slow but when they're always knocking kids down and pushing them I get frustrated, and it wasn't just my kids they were doing it to. Andrew was going through a tunnel uner the tree house when older kids wanted to run under there and she started going over the top of him and smushing him against the flood, I told her to stop and watch out for the little kids. Enough of my soapbox though.

Andrew had a lot of fun and even found a little 'girlfriend' to play with. :) I think she was about 3 or 4 years old (an older girl, I better watch out.) Andrew kept wanting to sit in this little canoe and she would come sit with him and then try to coax him to do something else and then he would go back to the little boat. They would walk around and she would hold his hand, he had a big smile on his face. It was really cute! (I couldn't really take a picture of the two of them and put it on here without looking like a creep.)



Andrew got to ride this jeep ride, he was so excited!!

He just sat in the helicopter, we didn't have anymore quarters. It costs 75 cents per ride!! He still enjoyed it though. I don't know if you noticed the fireman boots, but he won't go anywhere without them! :)

Andrew LOVES corn on the cob!!!

Doesn't this picture say it all. Andrew LOVES corn on the cob!!

He was very excited to buy it when he and daddy wen to the grocery store and he made sure to tell me we were having 'corn on the cob' for dinner when he got home. He had little bits everywhere. He sucks every little bit off and then he finished both of ours!

(He even had chicken and pea risotto and squash for dinner. What a good eater!)

It's still Fall

We may have been searching for a Christmas tree, but it is definitely still fall. Our yard was completely full of leaves!! We spent almost 2 hours raking leaves last Friday (11/7/08) Andrew was very well behaved. I told him his one big job was to stay on the grass (we live on the corner lot to our subdivision and there aren't any curbs or sidewalks, just grass straight into the street) He did a great job! (so he got a sticker for his sticker chart, that is very important to a 2 year old) He even made sure mommy and daddy were on the grass and not in the street when he saw cars coming.

We had a little rake so he tried raking leaves. :)

He wasn't interested in jumping in the piles though.

No daddy...don't drop me in.

In this picture he looks a little unsure but he had fun.

Jumping in the leaves with his boots.

Our yard waste can is full to the top with leaves. And guess what I found the next morning...our yard was completely full of leaves again!! Grrrrrr!!!! (I knew that would happen though)

Thirsty anone?

We couldn't get a really good shot of this, and it's fuzzy.

Andrew had asked daddy to fill the dogs dishes with water because Grover had been nosing the dishes (his version of asking for water). Then daddy was in the kitchen and realized it was awfully quiet and the dogs weren't underfoot, which they usually are in the kitchen. He went around the corner and found both dogs and Andrew all on all fours drinking out of the dogs water bowls!! He also got caught doing it again a couple days later. We decided we better run the bowls through the dishwasher. :)




Andrew's been doing a lot of cooking with daddy. He's his little sous chef.

Here he is sitting on his chair waiting for when it's time to help daddy.



"Stir, stir, stir" Andrew does a lot of stirring. Here he's stirring eggs for breakfast


The goofball--sticking his tongue out



The two chefs

The Christmas Tree Hunt

A Christmas tree??? Yes folks, you heard that right...a Christmas tree! Last weekend (the day after Halloween) we took Andrew to Double Four Tree Farm. This is at least our 4th year going there to get our Christmas tree. We usually go right after Thanksgiving but last year we finally heard about their mailing list to pre-select your tree. You can go out anytime after Halloween and pick your tree (before everybody else) and you pay for it and decorate it with ribbon and a sold tag. Then anytime after Thanksgiving day you can come back and cut it down.

Andrew had a blast running through all the trees. He kept trying to pick the short little ones (we may have to put a little fake one on his dresser in his bedroom :) He did help pick the big tree though and told mommy where to put the ribbons. The last 2 years he cried when we would walk through the trees.

Andrew's perfect tree. :)

We convinced him we needed one a little bit bigger...

So we set off on the hunt, for that elusive perfect tree.

Enjoying running around the tree farm

Oh the faces you can capture of a 2 year old. Pretty goofy!

Andrew was helping me find the best places to put the ribbons. :) What a good little helper.

Daddy and Andrew

Silly daddy! He's tying up Andrew with the ribbon.


They had a tractor with a digger on it so we had to go check it out. Andrew loves diggers!!!

Happy Halloween!!

Andrew was excited to dress up in his dinosaur costume again. We went early and trick-or-treated at his little buddy Ethan's house so Andrew could show him his costume.



It was hard to get a picture of them that wasn't blurry, too much action. They played the "Ready, Set, Go" game again before we left.

Ethan the lion

Then we went to grandma and grandpa's house (daddy's parents) before we went trick-or-treating.


Grandma, grandpa, and the little dinosaur :)

Grandma and grandpa have a HUGE maple tree by the driveway. Grandma raked up some of the leaves.

Then we got pizza and took it to a friends' house. It's been our tradition now for three years to go to their house and go trick-or-treating with them. Andrew was a little shy at first, but by the end of the night he was running behind the little girl to the door when they passed out candy.

The bumble bee, the princess, and the dinosaur

When we went trick-or-treating Andrew's friends were very exuberant. He tried to say 'trick-or-treat' a few times and a few quiet thank-you's. They were introducing themselves to everybody. A fire truck even came to the neighborhood (it's a big development) and passed out glow sticks. Andrew thought that was really cool. I asked him if we should do this again next year and I got an enthusiastic "Yeah!"

Andrew LOVED this big car!! He always has to point out the one at Costco. He didn't want to leave and go home, but we finally convinced him.

Grumpa came over the next morning so he got to put on his costume again to show him and a couple of little neighbor friends we didn't see the night before.