Christmas rounds 1 and 2

We spent Christmas in upstate NY. Pics from dad and Judy's house, then from Mom and Paul's house (in the hot tub).

The boy is ready for Christmas

We got a surround-sound stereo system for the living room from Dan's parents, which they had us just order ourselves, and Dan has spent the last two days assembling it. At the same time, V has been getting a slow stream of Christmas presents from his old babysitter Marissa and from school, and my friend Lise has given him a duplo advent calendar (this is really cool- she wrapped up a bunch of duplo legos individually, numbered them 1 to 25, and tied them to a braided cord for him to pull off and open every morning). So the child is not lacking new stuff to play with. Of course, though, he's all about the giant styrofoam blocks that were packed in the stereo box.

This morning, he got up at 6:40 (argh! on a Sunday! Fresh hell!) to play some more with them. In the middle of building the millionth tower, he turned to me and said, "I think Manny wants styrofoam for Christmas, just like me. I'm going to get him styrofoam." (Manny is the mammoth from Ice Age, his current favorite movie). Then I thought about how I wanted him to help pick out Mom Wayland's gift and asked if he wanted to go do that with me today. He said "NO! Grandma Jeanne wants styrofoam too! I'm going to get her styrofoam!"

Sorry I gave it away, Mom. ;) Oh, and now you can see his haircut, too!

Someone needs a haircut

And it will happen on Tuesday, but thought you'd like to see the craziness of V looking like a Beatle.

October visit to the pumpkin patch

Photos from Mom and Paul's visit in October, when we went out to Didier Farms (in Deerfield?) to the pumpkin patch. Which these days includes rides, bounce-houses, petting zoo, and so forth.

Halloween, and a new camera, part 2!

And a comment on the time I'm posting these, that extra hour from daylight savings is only fun if you don't have small children. ;-)

Halloween, and a new camera!

This is Halloween morning, after pumpkin waffles.

Sunday night

We got Vincent his birthday big boy bed this weekend- only six months late. Good thing he can't read a calendar and is easily distracted! ;-) It was a great success. Though when we were taking apart his crib, he wanted us to set it up in the living room. He took a nap in it yesterday for the first sleep, and we went off to spend a couple of hours at the mall getting new cell phones (why, why does it always take at least two hours to do this? It took Robbie THREE HOURS when his phone was stolen!). Anyway, V woke up before we got back and Uncle Robbie took care of him for a few minutes, but V had a terrific nap and was totally happy about his new room.

Before he went to bed last night for the first time, he asked if he could get up by himself in the morning. I'm thinking that this is how it starts and next thing I know he'll be standing next to me at 4 a.m. asking for cereal, but I said, Yup, you can get up by yourself in the morning. And he got really sad and said but I don't WANT to get up ALONE! Of course I told him I would come get him up in the morning, same as always, he didn't HAVE to get up alone. So we dodged the bullet there, for the time being.

So I got him up this morning, and he was so excited about the whole thing, he asked, Can I keep my big boy bed? It was adorable. So good times around here. Can't wait for our camera to arrive so I can show off his new room.