Our first big snow

We had our first big snow of this year yesterday! It is so cold!! Andrew says brrrrr!!!! We got a couple of inches on Sunday afternoon. Andrew wasn't sure what to think. I think he was having a hard time walking in his puffy snowsuit.

We did start to get a little bit on Saturday night just as Andrew was about to go to bed, so we let him go outside for a few minutes. He fell down the front (three) steps and scraped his nose on the pavement. :( I think that might be why he wasn't so sure yesterday. :( He didn't really want to touch it either.


He stood staring at it, not sure what to do.


He was having a hard time waddling in this really puffy snowsuit and his rubber rain boots.




He was very disturbed that mommy and daddy's cars were covered in snow, that morning he didn't want to go get in it to go to church.


We finally coaxed him away from our driveway, but he wanted someone to hold his hand and help him walk.


Trying to catch snowflakes. :)


He's relaxing a little bit here, mostly watching everyone else throw snowballs. But then he didn't want to go inside. The hot chocolate daddy made was pretty yummy though.

The new play area

On Saturday we finished some Christmas shopping at the South Hill Mall. Andrew loves the new play area there. We just found it about a week and a half ago. It looks like Noah's ark and has two of each animal inside to climb on and through, and a little slide. Andrew would sit on the slide and say "Ready, set, go!" He did ask me to help him climb up on the animals several times, or off. I tried to show him how to do it. He's always been a little bit timid of climbing things and he has short little legs, poor little boy. He's into climbin a little more now.


Bathtime fun that night




One of Andrew's favorite bathtime games is "firetruck and boat." Mommy is the boat and Andrew is the fire truck. We each put our vehicles on the wall of the tub at opposite ends and then we race towards each other and crash. We say 'boom' and a lot of times I knock his in the water and we laugh. Then we start over again. :)

Friday morning Andrew decided he would actually play in his room for a while when mommy was doing chores upstairs.

He loves this train table!! A friend at MOPS gave this to us and he is very happy to have it.

He lines up all his trains in a row.

The gingerbread houses

We had a busy weekend doing fun things mostly at home. Friday afternoon we invited Andrew's best friend Ethan and his mommy Kelley over to make gingerbread houses and then his daddy and Uncle Marc came for dinner.


We started to set the boys up in their chairs and then realized we should probably let them play while we put together the house for them and then they could decorate it.


My little goofball!


Here's who really did most of the making of the gingerbread houses...the mommies. We hadn't opened the box and read the directions yet, it said to let it stand for 1 hour after putting the walls together, then to let it stand 2-3 hours more after putting the roof on!!! Directions....who needs 'em, we didn't have time for that. We just did it, and they're still standing. :) We put them together and decorated the sides.


Then we put frosting on the roofs and let the boys go to town with the candy. Andrew only ate a few pieces.


Ethan however ate a bunch more. :)





The finished product.

The gingerbread house is now sitting on the buffet behind our dining room table. Andrew comes over and stands on a chair next to it and tries to put more sprinkles on it, or I think he might think we can eat it, although he hasn't tried to take any off that I know of.

Those are big shoes to fill

These are just a few more fun pictures we took when we were decorating the Christmas tree two weekends ago (Thanksgiving weekend).


Andrew's favorite spot to sit and look at the tree.


He decided to wear daddy's shoes :) (sans pants, he had just had a diaper change) He actually walked across the room in them without falling over.


He had to have both little flashlights to carry around, he says one is mommy's and one is his.

He is very particular about things and how he wants them. He insists that our silver KIA SUV is daddy's car and the white Saturn is mommy's car. He also thinks he can get the dogs to do whatever he wants, boy is he mistaken sometimes. It's cute though.

The Christmas Tree

Okay, so I'm trying hard to catch up on some of Andrew's blog, I haven't been very good about it the last few weeks. And when I try to upload pictures a lot of the time my computer kicks me off. :(

So, if you read my earlier entries you know that we picked out our Christmas tree the day after Halloween. So the Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to go cut it down. (I still wasn't feeling well so we went and cut it and then I went back to bed and daddy put up the tree that night, but didn't decorate it) Luckily we had picked a tree fairly close to the building so it didn't take us too long to hunt it down. We waited until Sunday afternoon to decorate it. I only just started to feel better on Monday after Thanksgiving, and then I had to go back to work on Tuesday.


We found it!


Andrew is watching intently as daddy cuts down the tree.


Takin' a break


Andrew pretends to help daddy saw it. He was very disturbed though when we cut down the tree. He kept yelling "uh oh, uh oh, uh oh."


He was very excited when we brought it in the house though.


Andrew appointed himself director of the Christmas tree.


He pulled over a dining room chair and stood on it and told daddy where to put lights and everything, he did hold some lights for daddy though.


Andrew helping mommy hang a new ornament we bought this year. (We did get a new family ornament too and an ornament for Andrew, but that's for Christmas morning. Shhhhhh :)


Rockin'


Andrew's favorite ornaments are this puppy ornament (that we got when we just had Grover) and a Grover (our Golden Retriever) and a Zoe dog (our black lab/border collie mix).


Sneakin a kiss, what a sweet boy! :)


This is what happened when I tried to take pictures of Andrew when we were decorating the tree. He loves this purple Hello Kitty camera (no I wouldn't have bought it for him but someone gave us a box of toys and it was in there, and he loves it!!) and we hadn't found it for a few months (it was in my camera bag of all places) and we had just found it and he was so excited to play with it. So every time I tried to take his picture he would start taking pictures. :)


I think Andrew might have taken this one.





Ahhhhhh!!


Andrew and mommy with the almost finished tree. Andrew also made his own candy cane ornament in his class at church the next week.

Andrew loves the Christmas tree and comes down every morning and says "plug in, plug in." And he brings daddy more lights to put on the tree. He sits down and looks at his favorite ornaments, and of course takes pictures of them. It's very adorable!!

Santa's Elves

Monday we mainly stayed around home except for our weekly library trip. Andrew has been so good lately, I'm so proud of him. He hasn't misbehaved at the library in a while, and he gets a sticker every time before he leaves if he behaves well. He loves doing all the puzzles and even does pretty good at the one's without the peg holes...with just a little bit of help from mommy. :)

But Tuesday was the best! We made sugar cookies in the morning. Andrew liked patting it and rolling it with the rolling pin and best of all, picking out the shapes and cutting the cookies! :)


Pat it......


Roll it......


and mark it with a b......just kidding, that's a cake :)


the all important cutting of the cookies


Mommy helped Andrew with the cookies


You aren't really baking unless you get a little flour on yourself


Ready to go in the oven, yum!

That evening after daddy wen to school and we had some dinner, Andrew and I had secret elf work to do for Christmas, shhhhhh!! I helped him do some art projects that he's going to give as Christmas presents. But I can't show those here, there are some people who might see this who will receive those gifts.

But here is a picture of Andrew's painting that night, I gave him red and green paint but he kept telling me that he was painting a picture of turkeys. :)

Andrew loves to take pictures with his camera when I'm taking pictures.

He made this candy cane ornament in his class at our last MOPS meeting.

Andrew's new best friend

is........Cookie Monster!!! He takes him everywhere!! Cookie Monster looks like he's wearing boots just like Andrew's so he thinks that's really cool. I think he thinks Cookie Monster can do whatever he does, except he's 2 1/2 inches tall and made out of all plastic. He thinks Cookie Monster should take off his boots when he does. He also thinks he can walk. We went for a walk to the mailbox and Andrew put him down on the sidewalk and looked at him, waiting for him to move, he put him down in the street again too.

He puts him on the couch to watch t.v. I guess. Here he is in Andrew's rocking chair.
I
I was trying to take pictures of where he had put Cookie Monster, but Andrew thought it was hilarious to run in front of the camera smiling and laughing. :)



Here's some goofy pictures of him

He still has food on his face from the dinner he'd just finished.

My silly boy!

I had taken a low-census and come home early that Sunday afternoon (the 23rd, right before I got sick) because I was very tired and starting not to feel good, but Andrew had other ideas. He thought I came home just to play with him! :) He kept saying 'mommy, get up!' when I would try to lay on the couch.