Still here

Sorry about the lack of updates, all you faithful fans of Andrew. It's been 2 months since our last post, and most of the summer has passed us by. We've traveled to Nana's house to see cousins (and Granddad run fast), had a week-long fever, and learned that "parents" means Mommy and Daddy. We've also felt the baby in Mommy's belly move a LOT, which makes me want to get back into the habit of blogging so we can keep everyone up to date as things progress in the coming months.

Andrew is super-excited about being a big boy, now that he has a big boy room and wears big boy underwear, so he is adamant that he is no longer a baby. He is, therefore, very willing to let someone else take that role. I think part of him wonders what will happen when the baby is outside of Mommy instead of inside, but most of his interactions suggest he will be a good big brother. When we ask him what we should call the baby, he invariably tells us "Andrew". It is a good name for a baby, but I think we'll go with something different this time.

Big Brother

While most people who read this are already aware, I thought I would make it "internet official" by posting it on the blog. Perhaps we need to change the name to the Bean and Monkey Blog now. Andrew is looking forward to being a brother, at least as far as we can tell. Then again he hasn't actually met the baby yet, so we'll see how long that lasts.

Welcome to winter!

Last weekend we made it through being very snowed in all day Saturday. When we did venture outside to shovel (yes shovel---a snowblower is now very high on our wish list!) Andrew was up to his waist in snow on our driveway. He didn't like anything about it, and decided to stand in the garage and watch Mommy and Daddy shovel. Some of our excellent new neighbors came over with a snowblower and two girls with shovels to help us. We were able to share some of the 10 dozen cookies we had just made with them to thank them.

Andrew's 2nd birthday went very well. We had a party with his two best friends (and one older brother and associated parents) at our house. Andrew danced with joy when his friends arrived. It was so much fun to see them all playing together.

Andrew can now identify Santa, reindeer and Frosty and we frequently hear about them if they are spotted anywhere--in a book, on television, card, catalog, billboard... Christmas is coming!

Fall catch up

Ok, time to play catch up since our last post :) Andrew again "ran" in a TC Marathon weekend family event. This year was the Toddler Trot and

you can see Mommy and Andrew in the middle (mommy in grey sweatshirt) making it through the course.

Andrew was a great Tigger for Halloween. We had a great time at Zoo Boo as Andrew walked the whole zoo gathering treats in his "punk" (his first use of the classic pumpkin pail). We were happy we went to Zoo Boo as the actually Halloween we were all recovering from the flu and didn't go too far!

Then Mommy had a conference in Orlando so everyone came so we could see Sea World. It was excellent as Mommy has been to EVERY Sea World and was thrilled to share this experience with her boys.

New House

Well, it's been a long time since our last post due almost entirely to the time-consuming nature of packing, moving, and unpacking all our stuff with a toddler running around. We have a new home that is bigger, younger than us, and has a couple more bedrooms and bathrooms, but it has a lot of stairs, which Andrew is very slowly getting used to. In the relative calm of the past few weeks, we went to the apple orchard twice, once with Grandma and Granddad and once with our friends the Moons, and Mommy hosted a party!! That last part was actually pretty exciting.

Our house-warming gift to Andrew has been two train sets: one Thomas, one Ikea. They are supposed to be compatible. They are not. So now he has blue (Thomas) choo choo in the family room and the other choo choos (Ikea) in his playroom in the basement. Yes, there is a dedicated room to Andrew's toys, to which we can close the door and never mention to guests.

Otherwise, we are all doing well. Thank you to all who read this and continue to care about Andrew and watch as he grows.

Andrew's Summer

This summer has been busy with activity, which creates few opportunities to post to the blog, but we wanted to update all Andrew's fans about what's been going on. Our biggest change from previous times is the amount of time spent "ah-sy". Andrew loves his Lil Tikes car and will spend hours (if allowed) getting in, getting out, getting in, moving forward a couple steps, getting out, getting in, getting stuck, screaming, figuring out he can get unstuck, getting out, getting in, etc. He is definitely building expertise and confidence with that car. The downside is that he now thinks he can drive our cars as well.
Andrew has also had a couple opportunities to go swimming in his little wading pool. Daddy has even joined him a couple times to encourage him to put his face underwater, to varying degrees of success. He had a pool party with his friend Russell as well, though Rusty seemed more interested in drinking the water than playing in it (it was hot that day, he was thirsty). We have also made it to Teddy Bear Park in Stillwater twice already. It's the perfect size for toddlers, though there are big kids running around too. Mommy will have to post those pictures.

Bean Dance

We finally got around to transferring photos off the camera, and we found this gem we had to upload. It's from our time in Florida (see a couple posts ago). Enjoy!