More characters

We had such a great time at Disney World and met lots of characters. It took a while for Andrew to become comfortable with giant fuzzy creatures walking around. Here when we met Tigger and Pooh Bear he was still not so sure about these creatures, but we got a nice family photo anyway.

We have had a busy winter! Shortly after our Disney trip, we had a great visit with Grandma and Granddad and Great Uncle Dave. We went to the Science Museum and it just happened to be preschooler Monday! Andrew sat very well (on a carpet square!) and watched a presentation about bears. He loves listening to stories and pays attention so well. We also played with his baseball set with Granddad and Uncle Dave. I think Andrew learned the word for "baseball."

At home he loves his books and will pick out a book to read, bring it over to you then turn around and sit on your lap ready to go. Sometimes he realizes a few pages into the book that that is NOT the one he wanted, so he will close the book, slip off your lap and go get a different book.

The Davenports visit Mickey

Click below for our e-card.

Visit to Santa

Today (yes up to date news!) we visited Santa at a local mall. Daddy and Andrew met Uncle Pete and Mommy there. It was a long line for the middle of a workday but Andrew was a trooper and we had 3 adults jumping up and down to try to get him to smile. Though he wasn't too sure about Santa, there was no crying, just a little serious look at first, followed by some confusion, but once Santa had a book for them to look at together, Andrew was feeling okay about the situation. We of course bought photos and the rights and USB stick. Here's a sweet photo of Andrew reading with Santa.

We have a real white pine Christmas tree that Andrew helped us pick out at the university's forestry program tree lot (supports the students!). He helped pick out safe ornaments to put up and takes some off to carry them around the house.

Andrew is also nearly exclusively walking now that he is an official toddler. Both Nick and I had moments of "whoa" when Andrew first took our hand and walked next to us. He's a little boy now!

If we don't post again before Christmas---Merry Christmas to all!!

Walking when convenient

So honestly not much has gone on since the last post, or at least is seems so. Andrew is getting a little more confident about walking, but he's still very aware of how much faster crawling can be, so he never takes more than a couple steps at a time. He loves throwing his ball and then crawling after it, which we think he learned from the puppy. He also smiles nearly all the time, though he's had a couple periods of crankiness that we think are precursors of impending teeth.
For Halloween, Andrew was going to go as Daddy's Little Sidekick (a set of superhero pajamas), but at the last minute we got some adorable pumpkin-but PJs from Lynn's aunt, and we realized that he could be a superhero all winter but the PJs with pumpkins, bats, and black cats were more time-sensitive. We didn't go trick-or-treating because, frankly, we didn't think he would eat candy. Turns out we were wrong: Mommy opened up a Laffy Taffy, and Andrew reached up, grabbed it from her, and shoved it in his mouth ravenously. Good thing he's so good at brushing his teeth!!

Standing, clapping, laughing and even a step

Andrew has been a very busy boy lately. He is getting very good at standing up on his own and applauds himself. The first time he did it he looked at us like "are you getting this, yep I stand" then sat back down. We also had a great time with grandma and grandad in town the other weekend. Grandad ran a marathon (getting a new "PR"--personal record of 3:37!) so Andrew "ran" his own race that weekend--the Diaper Dash. As one of my co-workers commented when I was describing the race to them it's like a turtle race--put all the racers in the center of a circle and the first to the outer circle is the winner. Andrew from what we could determine was the first baby to crawl to the outer circle (a few bigger kids gave up on crawling and stood up and walked/ran, which disqualifies them in my book).

On Sunday, October 11, Andrew went for some fancy pictures and did very well. See this one of Andrew showing off his crawling moves. He also stood and clapped and played with his new red ball. It was fun. We are getting excited that we are less than 2 months from his first birthday.

Ok, so for everyone following, we hope you are well and sorry it has taken so long to get a posting!

Brothers

Looking through old photos and found these. I think they really are brothers.

He's Crawling

Well, he has been for a while, but I've been pretty bad about updating this thing. In fact, we've had a lot of fun all summer with no updates. Briefly, we went to Chautauqua at the end of June and saw Sesame Street Live, Andrew is up to 6 teeth, he's unstoppable with his mobility, and Aunt Emily came to visit for the summer. Comment if you want longer entries on any of those points, but otherwise I think I'll just endeavor to be better in the future rather than going back and trying to recapitulate past events.