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.