Round One!

We spent the weekend celebrating Christmas with my family. First with Grammy, Mike, and Bri. Thomas had a great time with Uncle Mike. He big and rough and throws Thomas around. We aren't sure who was more tired, Mike or Thomas, after hours of rough-housing. Thomas got some really nice presents. He loves his shopping cart, food, and Elmo Potty book.

Napping with Mike after a delicious dinner of Beef Wellington. (Thomas is naked because he spilled his milk on his clothes at dinner. Since he hates to be wet, he proclaimed that he was "hot" so that we would take his clothes off. He ran around the rest of the evening in a diaper and winter boots- much like a toddler Napoleon Dynamite stripper.)



Thomas and Aunt "Brwi."




At Grandpa Dale and Grandma Pam's house, Thomas was elated to open "Elmo Live." It is a toy Elmo that talks, moves, dances, and tells jokes. It's fun for us now as well, we'll see how long for the novelty to wear off on Alan and I.





Kisses for "Melmo."




Thomas with Grandma Pam and Grandpa Dale.





Stay tuned for more Christmas celebration photos.

Big Boy

Thomas had his 2 year well baby visit today. He is 37 inches tall and 34.5 pounds. Our little boy is growing very large. He is in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. He was brave when receiving his shots and only cried a minute. Afterward he told me "shot hurt, cry." Big boy. He forgot all about the pain this evening and showed off his battle wounds to daddy, one in each leg. It's hard to believe that he was once only 21 inches and 8.5 pounds. His weight has quadrulped since he was born. Remember when...?!

Ahhh, almost makes me want another.

Christmas Dance

What a busy day! Thomas and I attended the 3rd Annual Van Buren ISD Childrens Holiday Dance this afternoon. My work puts this on for the children of employees. We didn't make it last year- Thomas was sick. But, we made it this year and had a great time. Santa and Mrs. Claus even made an appearance. He sat on Mrs. Claus' lap for a picture (a huge step compared to last weekend), did the Limbo with the other children, and feasted on lots of "kid food" (hot dogs, chips, mac n cheese, veggies, yogurt and chocolate milk).

Thomas comes face to face with a mini-Santa.

Notice his cheeks stuffed with chips?!

Enjoying the candy cane from Mrs. Claus.

Hmm, both my pictures from this event involve food.

Cookies

Thomas and I made Christmas cookies today. We made sugar cookies with Grandma's recipe. The same cookies I made growing up. He enjoyed using the cookie cutters. To him it seemed a lot like playing with Playdoh.

Rolling out the dough and sampling the cookies before they hit the oven.

Hmm, which one did he eat? I baked it half eaten figuring he could finish the rest after it came out of the oven.

Snowy Sunday

It has been a snowy weekend so far. We headed out early this morning to shovel and plow again. Alan thinks we have gotten about 7 inches of snow this weekend. Some areas north of here got 11 inches yesterday. Wow! Thomas and I normally watch Daddy do all the cold outdoor work, but we were feeling a little more adventurous (and sick of looking at these same 4 walls) this morning.

Thomas lends a hand with the shoveling.

Daddy gives Thomas a ride on the "klow." Thomas is fascinated with the plow. We watch from the window on most days while Alan plows the driveway. Today, Alan is the hero.

All bundled up!

Happy Thanksgiving (& Birthday to me!)

We spent the day with the Asiala clan just Northeast of Muskegon. Many aunts, uncles, and cousins were there for dinner. As always, there was way too much good food. Thomas loved the meat (turkey of course) and meat dip (gravy to the rest of us). A bit of a surprise -- he LOVES cranberries. We had to hide them at one point (after 3 servings, I felt he should be done). Alan's Uncle Don and Aunt Kathy spent last night with us and will stay again tonight. We've had a great time catching up and playing Wii bowling with them. Here are some highlights:



Thomas coloring with his cousin Laura and second cousin Frances. The girls took really great care of Thomas all day. When I went up to take this picture he told me to "go away." Now that he is a big boy, mom can just sit back, have a glass of wine (or 2) and actually talk to people. Imagine that. Thanks Laura and Frances!!! You're the best!!!

Family photo. We decided the Christmas sweater could also be a Thanksgiving sweater :) Thomas is wearing his "stuffed turkey" hat. Joke of the day --- Tom Turkey.

Thomas humors me for one more picture of the "stuffed turkey" headband. I'll never know where Carol comes up with all these ideas.

Daddy Pound Deer

Alan called this morning shortly after leaving to go to work. He hit a deer a few miles away from our house. I told him we would be right there. I got Thomas ready, told him Daddy hit a deer and we had to go help. I got to listen to Thomas say "Daddy deer, Daddy pound deer" the whole way there. Alan was not amused by Thomas' excitement. Alan is fine and his car is just a little dented. Nothing like a little excitement at 7am.

Christmas Sweater

I commissioned my friend and co-worker, Bonita, to knit a Christmas sweater for Thomas. I've seen her work, which is always beautiful, but she completely exceeded my expectations. In order to make the perfect sweater she combined 2 patterns. Thanks Bonita! Here is a picture of Thomas, with his best friend Kimble, wearing his new sweater. Also, a close-up of just the sweater. Bonita does fabulous work. Check out knitb4sleep.etsy.com for her online store.

Peak Performance

The Clark W. Griswald award goes to Alan. He decided it would be a good idea to get the Christmas lights up before the weather got much worse. The thought of hanging Christmas lights in a snow storm just screams "accident waiting to happen." Our roof has many steep peaks. It's almost hard to believe that this house was roofed just under a year ago, in a blizzard none the less.

Thomas offers support from the bottom rung of the ladder. He would have happily climbed higher if his parents would have let him.

Thomas survived his first night away from mom and dad on Friday. He stayed the night with our good friends Beth and Troy. They are the parents of his best bud, Jack. We went to Holland to watch the South Haven Rams varsity football team play in the regional tournament against Holland Christian. We were ahead at half-time 19-18, but they came back with a vengeance. Sadly, we lost 25-60.

Alan's lit house. I told him that he isn't actually allowed to keep the house lit until after Thanksgiving. We'll see what happens...

Funny, funny boy

So, Thomas is really talking a lot these days. You'll appreciate his most recent observation.

A little background info:
Thomas has a stuffed dog, lovingly called "puppy." He chews/sucks on the nose and makes holes. To which he is always telling me "fix nose" and "hole." So, I cut away the extra fabric and stitch up the nose. Puppy doesn't really have much of a nose anymore, just a flat bulge that was once a nose. It kind of stinks as well, I digress...

Most recently:
This morning when I was getting ready, Thomas noticed the kitty walking away, pointed and said "hole." Luckily, I caught him before he touched kitty's "hole." A few minutes later he looked at me and said, "fix kitty hole." Ahhh, I just couldn't help but laugh. From a speech therapist's view, that is a really nice 3 word utterance! I'll be sure to share this with all my speechies at work. They will appreciate his new developmental milestone.

Family Time

We had family photos done a few weeks ago. Thought you might like to see...

Happy 2nd Birthday Thomas!

Our baby boy turned 2 yesterday. It's hard to believe how fast he is growing up. We celebrated Thomas' 2nd birthday with 22 of our closest friends and family. He had a great time. We have never seen him so wound up. For much of the afternoon, he just ran around the house in circles. Needless to say, he crashed at bedtime. Thomas had a Wiggles themed party. He loves the Wiggles. We had Wiggles cake, balloons and lots of Wiggles toys.

Thomas and his pals- Jack, TJ, Sam and Billy

I don't like to eat cake, nor do I like to have it all over my hands


Flying with Uncle Mike. He's fun and big. I call him "Mi."


Openning a Wiggles present in my favorite, everyday boots

Tools, tools, tools. Thomas got a lot of new tools for his birthday. He LOVES tools. According to Thomas, there is always something to fix at our house.

Better Late Than Never

Thomas humored me and wore his costume briefly for some pictures tonight. I may have bribed him with a sucker. He makes a pretty cute mouse if you ask me. Only 5 more days until our big boy turns 2!

Where do I start?

Well, Thomas did not celebrate Halloween this year. He was sick instead. Thomas woke up on Friday (Halloween) with a fever. So, I stayed home with him. He was rather lethargic and did not want to eat at all. Good indicators that he is really sick. We are not strangers to high fevers (103 degrees) so I gave him Motrin and settled in for the day. The day got interesting after his nap. He woke up crying so I went upstairs to get him. He wanted me to lay down with him and snuggle some more. During this time, he had a cluster of 3 febrile seizures. I called the doctor and they had us come right in. The fever was due to an ear infection. Luckily, febrile seizures are harmless and he only has a 33% chance of having another one. He is feeling better and is slowly getting his appetite back.

So, that is why we didn't celebrate halloween. I am still going to try to get a few pictures of him in his costume this week. Wish me luck!

Happy? Halloween

Thomas doesn't like halloween. He doesn't like books about pumpkins, books about halloween, pumpkins, costumes, or the pumpkin patch. He just plain does not like it! We took Thomas to the pumpkin patch to get pumpkins for the porch. One would think that this would be fun. He loved it last year. This year, he screamed the whole time we were there and cried the whole way home. Fun, fun! Here's a picture of Thomas (tears wiped away) and Daddy. This is the only picture from the pumpkin patch. Guess I won't be scrapbooking!



Thomas started at a new daycare a week ago today. His old center had too much turn over and was struggling with consistency-something our little Thomas thrives on. So, now he goes to Carol's house around the corner. He is doing really well there and is enjoying it. He is napping 2-3 hours every afternoon. A far cry from the 1 hour at the last place. Carol provides the meals at this daycare. A hot breakfast, am snack, hot lunch, and pm snack. She commented after his first day that she "has never seen a toddler eat so much food!" I guess Carol will be losing money on the whole food providing deal now that Thomas is in attendance. On the flip side, our grocery bill is lower now that I don't have to send a cooler with him to school every day!


He's having a Halloween party at Carol's house tomorrow. I'm sending my camera just in case she can get his costume on him (something I have been unsuccessful at). Best of luck to Carol.


Oh yeah, his new favorite word is "NO!" How long do the terrible two's last?

Big Weekend

We had a very busy weekend. Our good friend Billy turned 2; so, we headed off to Chicago to partake in the festivties. For starters, we left the house bright and early Saturday morning to head to the Shedd Aquarium. A co-worker reminded me that teachers get into the aquarium for free and children under 3 are also free. A measly $18 for parking and we were at the aquarium. Thomas liked the fish and turtles, but had seen all he cared to see after a little over an hour. Good thing the place was free. Non-teachers are $17.95 a person. Ouch!

Tommy and Mommy and the Chicago Skyline

Big boy walking on the planters at the Field museum





After our adventure at the aquarium it was time to head to our friend's house for some playtime and a quick nap before the party. Billy got a really nice wood play structure for his birthday. He and Thomas enjoyed climbing up and going down the slide together. After naps, we headed off to Billy's party at Big Bouce Party! Thomas had a blast jumping, climbing and running.

Thomas and Billy are too busy for a photo together! Happy Birthday Billy!

Jill and Suzie get into the fun

We headed home after a long, exhausting, fun-filled day. It was great to see our friend's and enjoy some quality family time together.

FYI...

I have decided to (once again) develop a blog. I had a blog during my pregnancy that our families seemed to enjoy. Now, 2 years later, I'm wondering why I didn't keep it up. Sleep deprivation is most likely the reason. Thomas is almost 2 and growing bigger and busier each and every day. Hopefully, this blog will keep you up to date on the happening's of the Asiala family.