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

Never be the same......

That's what everyone told us when we had Evan.  And then again when he started crawling.  And for the last few months, while we've been anxiously waiting for him to begin walking confidently so he can explore even more of his world, that's what everyone was telling us again.  Things would never be the same.  Well, we're there folks. And it will be a while before we say anything close to "why did we want him to walk again?" because we've been waiting for him to take this next step for a while.  Here are a few clips from Tuesday night: Walking 1 and Walking 2.  By Wednesday night, he walked all the way to the park from a friend's house.  We couldn't be more excited!

And another new discovery. We're pretty sure Evan comprehends "Packers."  This past Sunday, Jake asked Evan to find the Packers.  He initially would quickly point to his Packer's t-shirt.  Then, he went into the bedroom where I had recently sorted dirty laundry (into big piles on the floor of course - don't judge), grabbed another Packers t-shirt (because there are many of them in our house), and brought it back to Jake (see photo below).  And if that wasn't enough, he climbed up on Jake and pointed to the Packers logo on his hat.  It's official.  He's a Packers fan, and apparently by his own choice.

Here Daddy, this is a Packer's t-shirt, and let me get......

your hat!

Packer Backer

Here's some photos of Evan with his new Packers shirt we picked up on our trip to Sheboygan. He enjoyed the big Packers win over the Bears on Sunday.

Here's a VIDEO of the little guy waving "hi" to us.

New Packers Shirt

Trains... of course.. notice the "Packers" train engine

He likes the Packers Engine

It was so nice Sunday, we got to eat outside

Ok dude!

Weekend at Sheboygan

We enjoyed a nice weekend in Sheboygan with Grandma and Grandpa T.  The Packers won, we got to eat some amazing wings, and Great-Grandpa Gasper visited too.  Oh, and we stopped at Lambeau on the way home....Dad says it was to pick up something for the little guy, but we all know he just wanted more Packers can coozies:)

Checking out some goats with Daddy and Grandpa.

Pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumpkins (and we didn't even come home with one!)

Evan went to check this fountain out, and then discovered that he could reach the water and splash around like he does in the tub - it was not easy to get him away from it.

And yes!  They had a tractor that Evan could "drive."  And it wasn't easy to get him away from this either....

He couldn't reach the pedals, but we thought he'd enjoy riding around.  Well, he did, until we went under a tractor tire tunnel....didn't like that too much!

Sweetie!

Evan's trying to distract the sheep by pointing the other direction.  

The sheep didn't buy it.

"I found a seat!"

Mom and Evan got a little confused with directions here...