Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween 2013

Today was a great Halloween - nice, warm weather.  And it was the first year I actually made it to the Halloween parade at school.  Evan was so excited to see us there!
Inside Eric's classroom - our little dog and little giraffe:
He loved being a giraffe:
Our daycare had a Trunk-or-Treat and one was a jungle theme.  So there were two giraffes at the event:
The Candy Land Trunk-or-Treat was a big hit in our family as we play Candy Land every night:
A rare family shot:
The best attempt at a photo of the two of them outside:
Happy Giraffe:
 Our cute little dog:
The Crocodile Hunter (turned zoo-keeper) to help wrangle his animals:
Great ending to the trunk-or-treating event.  By the time we trick-or-treated at home, it was too dark to take pictures so I'm really glad I got some daylight photos.
 Happy Halloween!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

West Chester Railroad

We headed out today to go to the Wilmington Railroad for a train ride.  Upon looking at the website at the beginning of our drive, I found out it was unexpectedly closed today.  Since the boys were so excited to go on a train ride, we had to quickly figure out a different plan.  And thankfully West Chester has a historic railroad line as well.  The railroad cars are from the 1930's and it takes about a 30 minute ride each way, with a stop to get off at the turn-around point.  Both boys had a lot of fun.  Here Eric and Brian were having a great time on the ride out from West Chester to Glen Mills:



At the stop at the end of the line, the boys got to play in the leaves, throw sticks into the river and gave each other some hugs:

Loves to smile:


The train in the background:

It was a nice little afternoon activity for the boys to enjoy on a fall afternoon.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Kissing Statues

Evan has been VERY affectionate lately.  He likes to kiss us, his brother and any stuffed animal . . . or live animal . . . or stone animal.  And Eric does whatever Evan does.  So this is what happens every single time we leave daycare.  They have to kiss the garden statues of the bunnies.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Eric is 18 months old!

Eric turned 18 months old a few weeks ago now but we didn't get him to the doctor until last week, so it took me awhile to get around to this posting.  The little guy is 22 pounds, 12 oz.  This puts him in the 30th percentile of the WHO growth chart, which is what my doctor's office measures against.  It is only the 10th percentile in the CDC growth chart (which I think is more commonly used). In any case, he had gained about 2 pounds in three months and that's pretty good for him! He was 31.25 inches long (13th percentile) and his head was in the 70th percentile.  Given where we were 9 months ago, I'll take it!

Eric is talking up a storm, mimicking anything his older brother says.  I didn't expect our second boy to be as talkative as our first as I'd always heard boys are less verbal at this age.  But we've got ourselves two little talkers. He's stringing together words and it's been great hearing him communicate with us.  He has finally learned to call me "mommy"!  And my favorite word that he says is "Chuggington".  He even says "I love you" and has said it to me and one of his former infant daycare teachers . . . but not to daddy yet.  Where Evan was a daddy's boy at this age, Eric is all momma's boy.  

Eric is all about everything "Sesame" this age.  He asks to watch Elmo every night while I make dinner.  And his favorite stuffed animal that he must sleep with is cookie monster (dubbed "Monsters" but Eric).  We have an Elmo doll that sings/dances and he loves to dance along with it.  They have the same one at school and even his teachers get a kick out of him doing the "Elmo dance".  He also loves trains like his brother - Thomas is his favorite.  And he can't get enough time being outdoors.  He cries when we take him inside. He is a big climber and is into everything - he's all boy.

Lately he's testing us a little, hitting and throwing tantrums.  Where Evan used to just sit in time-out as instructed, Eric is not so easy and spends the whole time-out trying to get out of his spot.  But he's full of spunk and we are loving watching his personality grow.  

Our days of being cooperative with photos are probably numbered.  But we can still occasionally get a cute one.  Here we are apple picking this weekend.  


And if anyone is interested, here's the link to what Evan was like at 18 months: Evan at 18 Months Old
Some similarities and some differences.  Can't wait to see what the next few months bring.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Cute Conversation with Evan

Every night before bed, Evan and I do "snuggle time" where I lay in his bed and we talk about the day.  Tonight he told me about his first day in a new room at school and how he wasn't allowed to do "Animal Time" because he wasn't being quiet.  I was actually happy he told me that he got in "trouble".  I then I asked him if he wanted to know what I did today?  And I told him how I worked on my computer, talked on the phone and did my "numbers".  To which he said, "Mommy, I am SOOOO proud of you."  Because we always tell him we are proud of him when he is learning his letters/numbers.  How cute!  I know this "snuggle time" is not going to happen for forever and I do soak it up each night.  It's one of the best parts of my day.