Breaking Down the Towers

Here is today's tower destruction.

What can I bake for you today?

Evan loves to help me bake. Here is a picture of him wearing my oven mitts while something was baking.

Butler Bulldogs

Now that it's college basketball season, Mike made sure Evan has his "Bulldog gear." I've posted about this before, but the hoodie is just so cute. :-)

Fake Laugh

We hear this one a lot.

Knock Down the Tower

In between feeling bad last Saturday (at the height of the ibuprofen), Grandma and Aunt Judy came over to check on Evan. Grandma built a tower for Evan to knock down (one of his favorite things to do).

Cuddling

Evan had a rough go of it last weekend. Here's a picture or two of Mike and him taking a long break on the couch.

Concussion with a Side of the Flu

Evan is a toy stealer. When he tried to steal a toy firetruck out of his friend's hands yesterday, his friend hit him with it to defend himself. He got a nice-sized knot on his forehead, and was acting fine, so we chalked it up to a good lesson learned about being a toy bully. At 12:30 this morning, Evan woke up puking. After he woke up again to puke at 2:00, we went to the ER up the road. As it turns out, Evan has a concussion. :-( He was released and told to take it easy, so the Evan and I stayed home and watched "Dora, the Explorer," "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse," and "Thomas the Train Engine" all day and slept on and off. The concussion wasn't enough, so he now has a fevery flu on top of it (fevers and concussions don't usually go together). He's received round 1 of the H1N1 as well as his regular seasonal flu shot, so we're hoping we just skim the top of this one. Here is a picture of the knot on his head. Maybe his toy stealing days are coming to an end....

Whisker Kisses

From Papa!

Dancing

He doesn't always care what's on the radio as long as he can dance to it.

Warm Laundry

Here's Evan snuggling under the warm laundry straight from the dryer on Sunday. It's so cold here right now, I can't say that I blame him.

Treadmill

Evan loves the treadmill. While Mike and I are on it, he stands at the gate in the doorway and yells, "Keep running!" "Good job!" "Go, go, go Mommy Mom (or Daddy Dad)." When we're finished, he gets to "run" on the turned-off treadmill. Last night he decided to get more comfortable with all of his bed stuff. I think he figured out pretty quickly that it wouldn't be a great place to sleep (a little harder than his matress).

By the way, Mike would be mad at me if I didn't recognize Evan's new sweatshirt and say, "Go Dawgs." :-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Evan's New Year's Date

was his buddy Alex. After some intermittant pushing and shoving, they got along and had a good time. This is near the end of the night when they were watching Dora the Explorer in the loft and the parents were downstairs chatting. The kids made it to 9:15 -not bad. :-)

Trip to Fort Wayne

We ran up to Fort Wayne the other night to eat hot dogs at Fort Wayne's Famous Coney Island, see Santa on the side of the bank building and look at lights at Franke Park. 2 out of 3 isn't bad. We walked in Coney Island and knew we would be standing there waiting for a seat for a very long time (apparently other people had our idea as well). We ran up to Clara's Pizza King instead. It was busy there as well. Evan sat at the "cool" table with his cousins (my cousin Colin and my second cousin Holden). We went to Franke Park and Evan loved it. We took a picture of my alma mater's (IPFW) mascot and a 3-leaf clover (since there's some Irish in this family). :-)

Jack of All Trades

This post is about Michael. He learned how to do woodworking in high school and college during his summer jobs at his church. During Winter Break, Mike went to a co-worker's house and built this wet bar. Pretty impressive for a middle school history teacher and high school baseball coach. :-) He's been improving our house ever since we moved in 4 years ago (deck, wall-to-wall book shelves, mantel, extra storage in the garage and under the steps). Good job Mike.

Playing Horsey

Mike and I were taking turns bouncing Evan on our knees the other night. He's heavy, but we had fun. :-)

The Temptation Was Too Great

Evan lasted from November 26-December 28 in NOT yanking the Christmas cards down from the pantry doors. Temptation won him over on Monday and he started removing them for us.