Merry Christmas

We're almost there.  Christmas is upon us and it's been so amazing to watch Evan enjoy the different aspects of the holiday so much more this year!  He loves all of the sparkly lights and of course enjoys the cookies (one of his new favorite words).  We are just so happy that we have been able to be with both of our families for the holidays and Evan will get time to celebrate with everyone who loves him!  We are VERY blessed!
We hope everyone haves a happy and healthy holiday season!

Evan explores some of his new trucks.  Christmas started about 10 days before the big day with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stalder.

Grandma and Grandpa took Evan to the Children's Museum where they had an exhibition of story books, some of which Evan knows well and loves.  Above he is exploring the mouse's bed from "If you give a mouse a cookie" - a book he loves to get from the library.

If there were doors to open and shut, Evan was all over it.

Evan in heaven....driving the bus.

Evan spent quite a bit of time trying to work against the water tubes, shoving balls back up the tubes instead of dropping them in.

He loved the bubbles.  He kept trying to drag the huge bubble wand around the room to all of the water tables.  

Evan brought home this adorable ornament from daycare this week. We're still amazed that she had any time to help the kiddos put them together!

Merry Christmas to all!

Comrades

Evan's Cousin Grayson came over Saturday evening for a sleep over. The boys got to spend lots of time together. Most of the time was spent playing with trains. It's really amzing how long these two will sit and play with trains. If we didn't distract them with other toys and give them meal breaks, I think they'd be content playing with trains all day...

Videos from the morning:

Here's a VIDEO of the boys having breakfast.

And a VIDEO of the boys pulling around trucks with strings.



Trains... Saturday Evening.

Tains... Sunday Morning (notice the pajamas)



We were able to distract them with a puzzle... or couse it's a train puzzle



Finally we played with Duplos.. (there's a Duplo train in front of Evan)



Holidays arrive

 We've been busily enjoying the beginning of the holiday season.  We were able to make it to Nebraska for Thanksgiving and had a great time visiting family.  We baked tons of Christmas cookies too - Evan joined in for a bit of it.  We think he'll be baking independently by next Christmas for sure - look below for examples of his mad rolling and cookie-cutting skills!
And Evan's Packers continued their undefeated streak today - Jake worked hard to get Evan to dance to the Packer's scoring song.  Here's a VIDEO of his best attempt.

Evan showing off his new and slightly too-big jacket and snowpants.  He still seems to like the snow, but just gets worn out from trying to move in all that gear - you can hear the "swish, swish" from a block away:)

Early Snow

Well, it's happened. We got our first snowfall of this winter. Last year's snow was never-ending, we're hoping it won't be as bad as that. One of our earliest blog posts last year was about Evan's First Snowstorm - He had a much different approach this year. After we got all bundled up, we went outside. It took him a few minutes, but he loved it!

Video Update:
Evan Loves his Trains
Evan Riding the Dump Truck
Trying to Jump
Cleaning Up Part 1
Cleaning Up Part 2

He's ready for the snow (or a deep sea diving excursion)

Taking it all in

The cutest snow tracks ever

This happens at least once a day...

... and this at least twice.

Our little helper

While Evan continues to blossom in so many areas, he's been especially interested in helping with housework.  I tested this weeks ago with the laundry when I needed to bring him down to our construction zone basement and in order to keep him busy, I had him help me load the clothes dryer.  He loved it!  I am going to try to get a video of it this weekend because it's the cutest thing you've ever seen.  Here's a shot of him helping with dishes too.  I think he prefer loading the dishwasher (don't we all?), or maybe it's just the fun blue lights that come on when he gets to turn on the dishwasher?

Washing dishes with mommy.

 And it will be another weekend of routing for our favorite college football teams - can you guess who we were showing our support for last weekend from the pic below?  Hopefully they can surprise everyone and pull off another win!  Ski-u-mah!

Video Update

Here's a few of the best videos from the past few weeks...

Evan the Octopus

Evan Singing ABC's

Evan Finding the Letters

Evan Walking Around with His Blanket (Linus Style)

Evan Kicking a Soccer Ball

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone!  We're not actually planning to trick-or-treat, however Evan got to show off his costume at a Halloween party at the local park.  He was most interested in walking around and looking at the horses that were there to pull the hay wagons, but all in all he had a great time!  Hope you all have a great Halloween!

This was mommy's first attempt at making a Halloween costume - we like to call it semi-homemade.  He's supposed to be an octopus or squid by the way.

Checking things out at Minnehaha park.

He picked up nearly every stick he came across.

It was kind of tricky to get all of his "legs" into the stroller.

Fall

It's been a busy month and we're clearly behind on blog entries.  So here's a set of pictures showing what we've been up to.

Evan's crawling shoes.  We retired these the day he started walking independently.  Good thing because the velcro was worn down to 1 string on the right shoe - maybe that influenced Evan's decision to walk too?  "My shoes are about to fall apart, and mom won't let me wear my new ones while I crawl, so maybe I should start walking."

Evan carrying around his two favorite library books.  He still LOVES the library - he points at it every time we drive by and goes crazy over his new books.

Showing off his new haircut and the sticker he got for not causing the hairdresser to quit her job that day. Nice job buddy!

Taking a stroll in the driveway.  Tongue out of course!

Evan really wanted to help make cookies, so since the mixer was doing most of the work, he and daddy "mixed" their own batch.

Evan patiently waiting for the cookies to finish baking.

Even though it's getting darker earlier, Evan still wants to go out to play after dinner.  Here he was making a sweet chalk drawing on the sidewalk.

A walk at dusk in the neighborhood - we figured out after this picture was taken that he was walking to the park.   He was more than disappointed when we told him it was too late.

Evan checks out the 4-foot Lil' Red that Auntie Toby lent us on game day.  He wasn't too sure about it, but warmed up to it and ended up sporting a Nebraska t-shirt for the game.  (He refused to change into a gopher t-shirt at halftime)

Evan fell asleep in the car after a rainy shopping trip last weekend.  This was one of the times we successfully transferred him from his car seat to his bed for a nap.

Guy's Night

Mommy went to see a play with Auntie Toby last night, so it was just the boys at home. We had an awesome dinner and Mommy picked up some delicious cookies for us to share. After that we watched old Packer football games and I tried to explain to Evan how great Vince Lombardi was... he didn't quite get it. Just kidding, we played with trucks and trains all night.. of course!

Dinner consisted of Mac n' Cheese, Turkey Hot Dogs and Peas,
Mommy's recipe, but Daddy executed to perfection.

Satisfied Customer

We got to split a "Chocolate Truffle" cookie for dessert... YUMMM!

He's been getting really into puzzles, and he's been getting better
at figuring them out. First he worked on the dinosaurs...

Then vehicles...

And finally Animals... nailed it!

And then we danced... on the sofa!

Trucks Galore!!

We had a great day today. We went up tp Shoreview to visit the Aunt Rachel, Uncle Danny and Cousin Grayson. We went to the "Touch a Truck" event and kid's garage sale. The trucks were awesome and the garage sale was all toys, so Evan loved it. There was a firetruck, police trucks, tractors and more... and now that he's walking he got to explore all of them.

Here's Evan approaching the trucks

We had to check out all the wheels of the tractor

Evan in the tractor

We scored a sweet Duplo train at the garage sale - right up Evan's alley

The Zimmermann's picked up this box of cars and trucks... awesome!

Playing with the Duplos at home.. we were shocked when he built the "EVAN"

He's really been into the Packers lately.. so I guess we
weren't too surprised when he put this together