Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! To all of our family and friends, we hope that your Christmas was as wonderful as ours.  Since Quin is almost 2 1/2, this proved to be the best Christmas yet.  He got the idea of opening presents and thought that everything was very magical.  The hardest thing has been the idea that Christmas only lasts for one day.  He really wanted to open presents again this morning, not quite understanding that he now has to wait another year.  Tim and I were so happy to see the sheer joy on Quin's face, first as he walked down the stairs exclaiming "Oh my gosh" when he saw all of his gifts, then each time he opened something new.

Santa seems to have brought Quin everything that his little heart desired, including lots of Thomas The Train stuff.  His other favorites are Hot Wheels, a fireman raincoat, dinosaurs, a tool bench, and a kaleidoscope.  

We spent the afternoon over at Matt and Becky's, so it was nice to spend Christmas with family. Quin did a great job pushing his cousin Drake around the house in a new toy car that Matt and Becky got for their boys.

Decorating the Tree

Since we just moved into our new house, it has been a little hard to figure out where all of our boxes of Christmas stuff are. As a result, I have yet to find our good stockings or all of our ornaments. Fortunately, we decided to go toddler safe this year and bought a box of shatter proof ornaments. Our plan is to use these for the next few years to avoid running the risk of breaking sentimental ornaments.

We finally got our tree decorated on Sunday afternoon and it looks great! Quin had a lot of fun helping and did a great job. He quickly figured out how to get the ornaments to stay on the tree, although he also discovered that they are fun to pull off. The only downside to a tiny (3 feet tall) human decorating the tree is that things tend to get clustered in the small radius he can reach. I helped him out a bit and lifted him up to reach taller branches. Seeing as this was the first time that we could decorate as a family, it was something that I will always remember.

Singing

Quin seems to be mildly obsessed with Christmas, but more specifically Christmas songs. Every time we get in the car he asks for Christmas music and more often than not, he wakes up singing Christmas songs; he is currently in his crib singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town! Amazingly, he knows most of the words and pronounces them all with great clarity. I am hoping to get a great video of him singing, but for now I only have the following one. He looks a bit disheveled (he had just gotten up) and his words are a little jumbled, but it is still wonderful (in my biased opinion).



We are planning to go see Santa this weekend, and although this will be his first visit, I don't think he will be afraid since he really seems to like the idea of him. He loves to tell anyone that will listen that Santa is coming and he is going to bring presents if he is good. I can't wait until Christmas morning!!

Away From My Guys

Even though Quin is already 2 years old, until last week I had only been away from him overnight once (this past September when I had my surgery!), but knew the day would come when I would not be by his bedside reciting Goodnight Moon. Well, the time came. Stacy got married on December 12th, and I wouldn't have missed her wedding for anything. We considered bringing Quin to the wedding, but since it was in Vegas, we thought better of it. Consequently, Tim and Quin stayed behind and had daddy/son time. This was the first time that I had to recite Goodnight Moon over the phone, but it went great! I was only gone two nights, and even though the time went by really fast, I still missed my guys more than I could have imagined.

In the new house

Sorry for the lack of posts and pictures, but moving is tough! For the past five days, we have actually been living in our new house! We still don't have all of our stuff here, but at least we are sleeping here. Good thing too, because we got a good amount of snow last week that is still hanging around. If we were still up in the canyon, I wouldn't be leaving the house! Even though there is a lot to do around the house, it feels great to be back in our own house.

Quin really seems to like the new house and has been sleeping great in his new room. He loves the fact that he is able to open our new refrigerator. What fun. Teaching him to stay out of it is going to be interesting. He has a tendency to open the freezer, take a bite of a frozen waffle, and then put it back (sometimes he actually puts it back into the refrigerator). He also likes to open both the freezer and refrigerator doors, stand in front of them, and stare. Great for the energy bill! He'll learn, but for now this is simply something new that he has never been able to do before.

More Photos of the New House

These photos are from the MLS listing for the house. They're really crummy photos, but it'll give you an idea. By now all the flooring is gone and the baseboards on the first floor are gone. It pretty much looks like a construction site. But by the end of next week, it'll be painted and have wood floors in the first floor. Enjoy!

View from the street

Part of the basement (it's 1000 sq ft total!)
The big section of the garage (I get a three car garage!)
Looking into the kitchen from the family room (that linoleum floor is already gone)
Looking into the family room from the kitchen
Looking toward the loft and kitchen from the living room
Looking toward the dining room from the living room
Looking down into the living room and entry from the loft (that linoleum entry is already gone)
The back yard
The loft

The master bath (yeah, needs some remodeling)
The master bedroom

The place already looks very different.  I can't wait to see it all redone!  We already have plans to redo the half bath by the family room and update the kitchen.  The master bath will probably be next after that.

Quin's First Trip To The Movies

Since Quin's second birthday passed, we've allowed him to watch some TV. It's almost exclusively animated movies. His absolute favorite is Finding Nemo (good thing, cause it's a great movie). Nemo is followed closely by The Jungle Book. He even loves to sing the "Bear sessies, simple bear sessies, forget worry strife" song.

Since he clearly likes animated movies so much, and he sits very still and is well behaved, last weekend we thought we'd try something new. We took him to the movies to see how he'd do. We saw Madagascar 2. Elizabeth and I loved the first one, and the second one was great too. Quin did wonderful! He sat still, snuggled with us, and ate Red Vines. He was so cute in his little booster seat sipping on his little drink! This of course was peppered with giggles. I don't know what he was laughing at because all the humor is adult humor, but he sure thought something was funny.

Turns out he was the most well behaved kid in the theater. We were a little concerned how he'd do, and went in fully prepared to leave before the movie ended. But we got to see all of it.

We will definitely be making more family trips to the movies.

Silly Face

As you know, Quin is a silly boy.  Lately, however, he has become even sillier and has a face to go with it:

This picture really doesn't do the silly face justice.  The best part is that he will make the face on command.  Simply ask him to make the silly face, and he does!  I wonder how our boy got to be so silly??!!

Happy Halloween

A few days late, but better late than never, we wanted to wish everyone Happy Halloween.  Quin was Uncle Sam this year, which we thought was fitting since it is an election year.  Let me say, this kid made the best Uncle Sam I have ever seen (although I could be a little biased).  He even knew to say "I want you" and point his finger!  The world (or at least those houses that we visited) must have agreed that he was pretty cute since he made out like a bandit in the candy department.  We hope that everyone had a great Halloween!     

Family Fun

A few weeks ago, we went to a fall festival for a fun filled family afternoon.  As was intended, we all had a great time, especially Quin.  He got to run around in a huge corn maze, eat cotton candy, pet a variety of animals at the petting zoo, ride (be pushed) on a tri-cycle track, watch a pig race, and play in a corn kernel box (think sand box, but filled with corn kernels instead of sand).  What's not to like about all of that!!  It's days like this that make family time so special.

He did have one slightly traumatic event that he is still re-telling to anyone that will listen: it happened to involve a donkey and his fingers.  We were feeding a very sweet, gentle mannered donkey some corn when it inadvertently bit him.  Now, he often exclaims out of the blue "donkey bites you".  I know that it didn't bite him hard, because I had my had wrapped around his, but regardless he is now slightly afraid of donkeys.  Poor kid!  Overall, he loved the animals (as always). 

The cotton candy was a hilarious experience.  I highly recommend feeding all small children cotton candy at some point, just to see what they do with it.  Quin loved every gooey morsel and was a sticky, pink mess by the end.  It was great.

What kid doesn't love the sand box?!  Well, the corn kernel box lets kids dig and bury things without all of the mess of sand.  (Corn is also a lot easier to get out of a diaper after playing.)  Quin loved it!   

The tri-cycle track was pretty cute.  Kids got to ride John Deer tri-cycles around a track and race each other.  I had to push Quin since his little legs weren't quite long enough, but he had a great time regardless.

I don't remember ever being in a corn maze as big as the one at Harvest Farms.  This particular maze covered over 12-acres and was great, with lots of twists and turns.   Amazingly, Quin walked the entire way!  He was pooped after that and and needed to get home to bed.