Decorating the Christmas Tree

Evan has been so exited about Christmas this year. He has been waiting all week to put the "jingle bells"(sparkly glass balls) on our Christmas tree.
















This was our first year having Evan decorate the tree with us. He was very good about making sure that all the ornaments we owned made it on to the tree.
We had a lot of fun decorating the tree as a family and we only broke one glass "jingle bell" in the process.








After we decorated the tree, we made yummy Christmas gingerbread cookies with daddy.

Evan was in charge of making sure they had lots of sprinkles and red hots.

A Visit to the Fire House

For playgroup this week we went to the McLean Fire House to see real firemen and real fire trucks. Evan and I had a lot of fun. They gave all the kids little fire hats and let them climb all over the fire engines.

Evan thought that ringing the bell on the old 70's engine was great fun.

It's a Baby Brother!

Even though ultrasound pictures are quite blurry I was surprised how much Evan looked like his ultrasound picture. I wonder how close this little one will look to his.

little fingers...

And little toes.

Happy Halloween and a Hurricane

Evan has been very excited about halloween this year, especially the part about getting to be a trick or treater.  While Grandma Heather was here on her way back from visiting Papa Saunders in Kurdistan, we took her to a local pumpkin patch out in the country to pick the perfect pumpkin. We looked at lots of different pumpkins and had a great time. In the end, Evan decided that the biggest one at the bottom of the hill was the pumpkin for us, so Mommy got to pull it and Evan all the way back up the hill in a wagon to our car.

The day before Hurricane Sandy was scheduled to hit, we decided it was a good time to get our pumpkins carved. The tools Daddy bought for pumpkin carving all got claimed by Evan, but we were able to carve some happy smiles on our pumpkins anyway using stuff from our kitchen.

We finished carving our pumpkins just as it started to rain. Although Hurricane Sandy did the most damage in the New York/New Jersey area, it left its mark on the D.C. metro area as well. We were expecting to lose power, and though quite a lot of people in our area did, we never lost our power. We did however get a leak in our roof about 1 inch in diameter. Paul had to go up in the attic every few hours to empty the bucket we put up there to catch all the water.

We were afraid that the hurricane would mess up our Halloween, but it turned out to be a great night for trick or treating. Evan got a lot of candy and was determined to eat it all in one night. He probably would have done, if Mommy hadn't made him brush his teeth and go to bed. He made up for lost time by eating the rest of his candy instead of breakfast the next morning. 

Introducing Baby #2

It may not look like much but this fuzzy blob is going to be the newest member of our family. The due date is set for April 12 2013. Here's hoping this one shows up on time.

Utah Summer Vacation (Part 2 with the Kraczek Family)

Our second week in Utah was spent with Grandma and Papa Kraczek and all the Kraczek cousins.

On our first day we went to Lagoon. While the big kids went on all the big scary rides, Evan and his cousin Kaitlyn had a blast riding all the rides they were big enough for. Even though he was very brave and had fun on all the bigger rides too, his favorite ride was Bulgy the whale.

We were there all day. By taking just a little nap in the picnic area under some trees after lunch, Evan was good to ride the rides till closing.

The Kraczek Family 

While in Utah we were able to go to two family reunions, one for the Kraczek family and One for the Western Family (Grandma Eileen's side) It was a lot of fun to see everyone and get caught up.  It is always exciting to see how much all the kids have grown and get to know the newest members of each family that we hadn't met yet. Evan loved being around all the cousins and would assimilate immediately into the kid collective wherever we went. We will miss everyone and can't wait to get together again when we come back.

Utah Summer Vacation (Part 1 with the Saunders Family)

"That's Evan's Plane!"

Our summer vacation started with a 4 hour plane trip from DCA to SLC airport. Evan was very excited to ride on a plane and he was very good for most of the trip.  Toddlers are just not built to sit still for that long.

Papa Saunders picked us up from the airport in Salt Lake City and Evan was so happy to see Papa and to tell him that he flew in an airplane way up high in the sky.

One of the fun things that we did in Utah was go to the Hogle Zoo with Uncle Alec and Uncle Chris. Our D.C. National Zoo pass got us in for free which was a nice surprise for mommy.

"Uncle Chris is a elephant!"

The Hogle Zoo has African elephants with saggy baggy skin and big ears instead of the Asian elephants at the D.C. Zoo.
The D.C. Zoo is bigger but the Hogle Zoo has more big animals like Giraffes, a Camel, Rhinoceroses, and...

A Polar Bear that has been trained to swim right up to the glass turn around and swim back to the glass again. It was a lot of fun to watch. You can just see Evan's head right up against the glass in this picture.

One night Grandma and Papa Saunders took us to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum.

"It's bones mommy"

Evan is really into the kids show Dinosaur Trains on PBS and knows more about dinosaurs at age 2 1/2 than I ever have.

"A shark called Cretoxyrhina"

We had a lot of fun running around the museum naming all the dinosaurs we could recognize. They look a lot different as bones as opposed to cartoons on TV.

The best thing we did in Utah was hang out with our family that we don't get to see very often. Evan had a lot of fun playing with his cousins Jonny and Tommy; they share a love of all things trains.

They have a great pool at their apartment that is just the right size.  We can't wait till our next Utah vacation to play some more.