Trip to Evansville

Last weekend we took an extra day to extend our weekend and bopped on down to Evansville to hang out with my family. We spent a lot of time relaxing and kept pretty busy. While we were there mom gave us a new toy-a little HD camcorder/camera. The first few pictures are taken with it-it does a pretty good job!



Dave helped Kyra make cakes.







She even trusted him with dumping in the flour.







Cute picture of Dave and Tony.







Dave and dad goofing off in the kitchen.





Our big reasons for going down there this weekend were food related. Dad and Kyra saved back a prime rib to cook for us, and we had a gift card to a Japanese steakhouse to use up. Unfortunately, I came down with the stomach flu and all of are (my) dreams of eating vanished.
I am feeling much better now, but it was touch and go there for a while.






Dave and grandpa Dave right before we took off to come back home.




We made it home safely, though the car trip did seem endless.




Playing in his new tent (courtesy of Gamma).









Pretending his tent is a rocket ship. It also turns into a plane.






Lots of great updates to mention! We are moving!!! We finally got the approval to move our entire cottage over to cottage 2-it's right next door. Our apartment will have....wait for it...SIX bedrooms. I cannot wait to get over there. Hopefully we'll move in the next couple of weeks.

Another update-Dave knows his letters! He has started pointing them out to us and gets 90% correct. He has a little trouble with B vs D and Y vs V, stuff like that. I am giving Word World (Dave's favorite show right now) all the credit. Seriously, it's a super-cute show and is extremely educational.

Otherwise, Dave continues to improve in his speech-he routinely comes up and asks me "what you eating there mom?" and then tries to steal all of my food. I think we may be past the climbing out of crib phase, at least for now. Bedtime has been a little rough the past few weeks. But I think when we move we're going to make him a big kid room and ditch the crib. I'll report on how that works :)

Keeping busy on cold winter days

The weather lately has been crazy-warmish one day and then frigid the next. So, we are doing anything that we can think of to keep Dave entertained. It's not going very well...Florida can't come soon enough!

On Friday, we had the lovely Corabelle over so her parents could go out for a much deserved evening out. Dave did pretty well while she was here, but it took a couple days to get him to stop pointing at me and saying "this is my mommy?!".



Of course the only picture I took all night wasn't the greatest. Corabelle looks pretty concerned about Dave.










You know, just hanging out in his M&M shirt (thanks Lauers) and camo cowboy hat. This boy has style.












He actually kept the hat on! Here he is playing with his ramps.







I wanted to get Dave the real Legos for Christmas, but they conveniently ran out of all kinds right before I could get any. They came back in stock, and arrived in the mail today. Now Dave can build big towers to his heart's content!





Building his towers (and tunnels now, very advanced) while watching Wild Kratts.







As I have mentioned before, our garage is heated. Dave is in love with playing in the car right now. He likes to drive and order me to sit in certain seats. Josh said he played drive-thru with him the other day and Dave thought it was hilarious.





While he was on a drive. I can't get over how much he looks like Josh in this picture.





Finally, here's a video of him "riding" his tricycle. He insists on wearing either my huge bike helmet or some kind of hat while operating riding toys. I give Dora all the credit on this one, she's always wearing her seat belt or helmets, "so we can be safe!". Riding the trike.

Mechanic in Training

Not a whole lot going on around here lately. We started our new schedule and I'm really liking it so far. Oh, and we booked our tickets to fly to Florida at the end of February. Very pumped about that! I'll just get on with the pictures, since I'm sure that's what everybody is waiting for anyway :)





Dave has discovered celery in the past couple of weeks. I'm not even forcing it on him, this is what he wanted for lunch.









He upgraded to car repair this week. Here's a video of our little mechanic in action.




We had great weather over the weekend. Dave and I went out for a walk on Friday afternoon, and I used it as an opportunity for some photos.





Posing on the rock. He was actually playing hide and seek and I caught him taking a breather.












Hitting the big tree with a stick. Dave is so proud to be a Hoosier this year. I have him in his throwback jacket pretty much everyday.











Playing in the tub. He now lays down in the tub and pretends it's a pool. I think he's getting excited about Florida.









We got the turtles out to play today. Here's an up close picture of Shelly. She loves the spotlight.





And I'll leave you with a video of him climbing out of his crib. He's really quite good at it.

Happy New Year!

Dave and I have been a little under the weather lately. He has an ear infection (he's on medication, and it's quite the struggle to get him to take it), and I just have a bad cold. I think we're over the worst of it now.




Here's Dave from earlier in the week. Looking a little rough.












Still pretty smiley though.







On Wednesday, my dad and Kyra came up to visit with us and celebrate Christmas. They cooked dinner for the cottage on Wednesday night (ham, mac and cheese, and corn, yum!).





Dave giving his approval of the delicious ham.













Dad and Dave doing story time. He had to read the same book over and over.






They left on Friday, and then we have worked the rest of the weekend. It's our last three day weekend since we start our new schedule tomorrow. Can't wait!!

I thought since I am not doing Dave's monthly pictures anymore, I'd do an update on the first of the month with what he's been up to.

He is now pretty consistently counting to 10. He even gets three in there now (he used to skip it all the time). He talks all the time and I think he's to the point that most people can understand him. I realized yesterday that I completely rely on language when communicating with him now. Pretty cool. A lot less frustrating then guessing.

He has stopped using his highchair for the most part and instead sits at a table and chairs set he got for Christmas. Other than that, he's really into trains lately, will sit for a long time with his train and tracks.




I found him stacking his cars on top of the new ramp he got for Christmas. He was so proud of himself!









He loves looking through this red plate.













Dave's styling in his new batman pj's from Dad and Kyra.







Hope everyone had a great New Years! We were working, so just came in after we were off for the night and watched the ball drop. Pretty uneventful, but about all you can do when you have to work the next day.