Best brothers at playtime.. they must know Santa is coming!

We've been inside for much of the last couple of days, but the boys have been really good and playing so well together. They have been having fun in the basement and also chasing eachother in circles around the house. Jack started off our snow day yesterday by sleeping until 8:30, which meant we all got to sleep in until 8:30. It was AWESOME! Then we ate some doughnuts, Andy and Chris shoveled the driveway (well, some of it - we have nice neighbors who snowblow for us!) and we just hung out the rest of the day, only venturing out to pick up calzones at our favorite pizza place a mile away. What a great day to have in the middle of the week! Here are some pictures where I actually got both boys in the same picture, which is sometimes hard to do!

Playing on their play gym

A big hug for Jack - well he seems kind of indifferent, but that's okay

Building a tall block tower

Andy providing a helping hand

2 little engineers, hard at work

Powdered sugar doughnuts on snow day morning... yum yum! I think Jack ate about 4 :) He's now out of the highchair and into his booster seat at the table. He's doing great at the table and it's nice to have a little more room in the dining room.

Andy with a messy face! His cheeks are still pink from shoveling outside.

And finally, here are Jack's stats from his 18 month check up last month(even though he'll be 19 months tomorrow!) He checked out great and just needs to go in for a flu shot booster this month.

Height: 33" (70%)

Weight 27lb 4 oz (68%)

Head: 49 cm (81%)

Jack started out so much bigger than Andy at the same age, but he's really slimmed down and is now pretty much where Andy was at at 18 months. Jack is starting to say more words and we're really trying to work with him on it. It takes a little more effort because if Andy is around, Andy is more than happy to tell us what Jack wants or needs. Jack LOVES running around in circles while holding onto your hand - getting "dizzy" he calls it. He still goes down perfectly for his nap and bedtime. He loves his blankets that he sleeps with and also loves Bailey so much. He calls Andy - NeeNee (that's the best I can kind of spell how he says it). He knows car, choochoo, bike, juice (juju), cookie, apple (bapple), waffle, night night, bye bye, doggy, Bailey, sheep (baabaa), mama, dada, and more. His favorite fruit is apples - he eats them whole! And he loves the song the Wheels on the Bus.

We're counting down the days till Christmas - especially Andy!

First Real Snow of the Winter

We had snow on the ground today for the first time this winter. Andy got out early and helped Chris shovel the driveway and then later in the afternoon we went outside again. Andy loved the shoveling and playing outside until he got too cold. Jack did not like his mittens and not being able to hold onto things very well, but we did find out that he likes getting pulled on the sled!

Andy with his shovel - working on getting the snow off of our front planting area :)
Both boys on the driveway
Andy trying to throw a snowball... the snow wasn't very good for packing though.

Jack trying to hold the shovel...

He eventually got a good scoop of snow!

Andy going in the sled first...

Jack taking his turn in the sled :)

Finally, a happy guy outside! I've really got to organize the boys' mittens and hats... Jack is wearing mismatched mittens because I couldn't find his other blue one :(

I think we're supposed to get even more snow on Wednesday! Hopefully it will warm up a little bit so we can make a snowman.

Happy December!

Well, I took a little bit of a blog break... We were busy, and once I got behind it seemed like a lot of work to catch back up! So, I'll do a brief recap of our November and then get to real-time. We had a fantastic November. On an early weekend in November Ryan, Marianne, Ben, Brad, and Karissa came for the weekend. Karissa and I watched Ben, Jack, and Andy while the rest of the guys went to the Packer vs. Cowboys game (a great game for the Packer fans!) We had a fun early Thanksgiving in Delafield and celebrated my mom and Marianne's birthdays. Then we went to Madison over Thanksgiving break. We ate delicious dinners, went to a Badgers Volleyball game, and went to the Madison Children's museum. Andy had a great time exploring downtown Madison, including the capital building.

Andy has been having fun at preschool and both boys are doing really well in their swim lessons. And now we only have a couple of weeks until Christmas! It's so easy to get into the Christmas spirit when you have a 3 year old. Andy is SO excited for Christmas :) Jack doesn't really know what's going on, but he's been having fun with our Christmas decorations. We got a visit from St. Nick yesterday where the boys got some small presents.

Andy excited about his Christmas stamps...
Jack checking out his new Matchbox car (playing cars is his favorite activity lately)

Andy opening up his Matchbox airplane...

Jack's been working on this move for awhile... he still needs help flipping into a somersault, but he thinks it's very fun. Dancing to some Christmas music!

Andy was busy with paper airplanes for about 2 hours last night - he would stamp the paper with his new stamps, then I'd fold it into an airplane, and he would fly the airplanes into that big "tree monster."

Bailey got a bone from St. Nick, but looks sad in this picture because he ate it way too fast...
Here's an action shot of Jack getting a kiss from Bailey :)
Jack and I (and Bailey)
Jack likes pointing out the zebra on our Christmas tree...

I'll try to do better in December with the blogging... We've got my cousin Lisa's wedding next weekend and then Christmas will be here before we know it!

A Happy Halloween

We had a fun, pretty low-key Halloween this year. We had a very cute puppy (Jack) and a very tough Batman (Andy). Yesterday, on Halloween, Jack was sick so only went to 3 houses for trick or treating.... I dropped him off back at the house then Andy and I went out on our own. Andy made it to another 3 houses then decided he wanted to go home too, since it was cold. He really does not like the cold weather at all. Andy shared some of his candy with Jack when he got back, which was nice.

This weekend we spent most of the time inside, since it was cold and we were all either recovering from being sick (Andy and I) or currently sick (Jack and Chris). But we filled the rest of the time with fun inside activities. We carved pumpkins - Andy helped me design the faces and Jack helped me scoop out a little bit of the insides. Andy would not even touch the gunk - but he did a great job deciding what shapes to make for the eyes, mouth and nose. We had Halloween cupcakes for dessert, read Halloween books, and watched some Halloween specials on TV. This week, Jack also discovered that he loves playing play-dough - And Andy has been having fun with it too. I think they've played it about 4 times each day for the past 3 days! Here are some pictures :)