Giving Thanks

Our November was a busy one; with a big final push on the basement Family Room and a Thanksgiving Feast to plan. We were able to have the Turzynski Family join us for Thanksgiving and a few other friends. Great Grandpa Ryan was even able to make the trip. Thanks to Adrienne and Jason for some the nice photos below.

Evan's waiting for Grandma, Grandpa & Great Grandpa to arrive

A little pre-dinner train time

Our 20lb bird

Our table

Everyone fit at the table... barely

Kid's Table



Kid's Table

 

This kiddos and their Moms



Buds

Evan enjoyed another sleepover with Cousin Grayson this weekend. They have so much fun together. Grayson is turning three this month and he's such a good boy. Very well-behaved and great manners -a great role model for Evan. The two had good times running around the house and playing in the new Family Room. It warms our hearts watching these two grow up together...

Eating dinner at the kid's table Friday Night

Good Times in the Family Room

We started Saturday Morning with Trains

Lots of Train Time

Since they were up at 5am, they needed a mid-morning cartoon break

"How much stuff can we fit in this bed?"

Sunday Morning: uber lounge mode

Happy Halloween

It was the first Halloween that we thought Evan would get into the festivities, and maybe he did, but a bit too early.  It's 8:07 pm on Halloween, and as I write this, he's been asleep for 20 minutes already.  The little guy wanted nothing to do with trick-or-treating and we ended up coming home after one attempt, 2 houses down.  Maybe next year.
He did celebrate with a Halloween parade at daycare today and immediately asked to eat his candy when he got home. He also wore his costume to the children's museum last week for a Halloween party.  So, maybe it was too much.  Either way, he was an adorable fire fighter and Jake was able to break out his mad costume skills in creating the fire truck from scraps of wood and cardboard with Evan's wagon.  Something tells me we will be crusing the neighborhood with the truck long after Halloween. 
Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!

Firefighter Evan and his Fire Truck

Ted (the bear) had to come along.

Before leaving for trick-or-treating.  We should have known his cuddly shy mood was telling us something about how the evening was going to go...

Reading books with cousin Sophia.



Watching the garbage men.  Sophie with her arm around Evan.  Too cute!



At the Children's Museum Halloween Party.  We were much more interested in playing than trick-or-treating.



Building parking ramps for his match box cars with daddy. 



The New Family Room

We've made lots of progress on our basement project. Evan has been enjoying the new Family Room as you can see in the photos below. It's been nice to get the weekends back. We've been spending less time working on the basement, and more time hanging out down there.

Here's a VIDEO of Evan helping Mommy bake cookies.

He's watching for the delivery truck, that's going to drop off the new couch.



We got a tent playset at a garage sale and set it up in the basement.



Evan started a "tea party" in the new basement and brought
stuffed animals down one at a time to join the party.

Froggy..

Giraffe...

 

Everybody's here!



Our little helper

Evan continues to become more and more interested in helping out around the house.  Of course, there are times when he refuses to do the things that he can do, but then he'll want to load the dishwasher or water the plants.  We are especially fond of the times when he's interested in doing something we don't particularly enjoy, however we know that the quality of the work is sometimes questionable.  Still, with his cheesy smile, I'm still a sucker for any little help I can get:)

Helping daddy prep to caulk and paint the baseboard

At some point, Evan seemed to get off task....maybe his taping job was "helping" daddy?

Just being cheesy at breakfast - he's been loving eating at the kids table.  Mommy and Daddy also love to squeeze their legs under it to eat with him:)

Helping mommy bake cookies - this is a pretty motivating task I think.

Checking out the plants, wondering why mommy and daddy haven't watered them more.  Especially since he loves to water the plants.  Note the circa 1980's ET tshirt.  It was passed down in my family, but I'm pretty sure my sister wore it when she was five.  Evan's a big kid.

Never dull....

 Nope.  Never a dull moment around the Turzynski house.  Evan's vocabulary continues to explode.  He likes to ask a million questions, some of which are those that are just pointing out the obvious.  I wish I could include a clip of him here so you could hear his intonation, because he lifts his voice up higher, just so, when asking these questions that it makes us giggle.  A lot.  Probably too much.  Like when Jacob came home from work one night, and had happened to stop off at the liquor store for a 6-pack. Evan sees him and asks, "You got beer?"  Who knows what he'll ask next.

It's been a busy few weeks, with a trip to the state fair, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Turzynski, lots of fun days/evenings with friends, and today a trip to a local festival.  It's been fun to watch Evan adapt to each activity and be himself.  Tonight he was cruising the kiddie games at the festival and was really shy at first - then after a few, he was walking right up to the game vendors to hand over his ticket and play so he could get a prize.  Too cute!

Here are a few shots from the last few weeks:

Favorite activity at the State Fair - sitting on every. single. tractor.

Nice smiley Evan.

Ridiculously over the top smiley Evan.

He would have driven off in this one, if they'd just left the key in it.

I don't know what he's doing here....

In one of his question-asking modes, he asked to see a peach from the fruit bowl.  Then, before I could cut it up (because I haven't let go of cutting everything up for him), he bit into it - he ate the whole thing. Seriously, no peach flesh left.  Just the pit.

Showing off a playdough sandwich he made.  He LOVES playdough!

Cruising at the local festival.

Despite his very serious face, he seems to love the kiddie rides.  

Amazing

Amazing.  That's what I always think when something new comes out of Evan's mouth.  Or when he recalls something with such incredible detail when I thought he wasn't even paying attention to the situation.  This is both a good and a bad thing at times, but generally good.  We have loved watching his language develop because we are really seeing his personality blossom too.  And while he is generally still a sweet, shy, kind boy, he definitely has a spark of naughty, bossy, loud boy too. And we love it.  We have to really watch what we say (he told me that he was  "turd" at the grocery store, repeating something he may have heard daddy say) but again, we love it!   

Long weekend

We took a long weekend last week to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Nebraska.  It was the annual Czech Days festival and Evan's first!  While I don't think he cared much about the Czech stuff, he loved the parades.  Long lines of trucks, tractors, firetrucks, and classic cars, what's not to love?

Playing in the giant sandbox at the zoo.

Crawling on the giant caterpillar.

It only seems appropriate that Evan's first corn-on-the-cob experience was in the cornhusker state. Doesn't he look like a professional?

Watching the parade at Czech Days.  There was a long line of tractors so Evan was pretty happy.

Typically it would be 100 degrees at Czech Days but we were lucky to get 70s and 80s.  You can tell by the fact that Evan's face isn't bright red:)

Helping grandpa empty out the cooler after the parade.  He lost his shirt b/c he was eating an ice cream bar, but I think the shirtless look makes him look like he's been working hard.

When we made it to our hotel, there was no pack-and-play for Evan - at first he was upset and then he fell asleep faster than I could set up the pack-and-play.  He looks so tiny in that huge bed.