Oh, Pretty Lights!

Andon has really been enjoying the Christmas season this year! He absolutely loves all the Christmas lights in the house and seeing all the lights outside, especially when we drive around at night. He's constantly pointing and saying, "LIGHTS!" And has also added the phrase, "Oh, pretty lights!" (Which I now find myself saying all day too.)

It just amazes me the words that will pop out of his mouth, things I don't remember teaching him, and things he remembers from days ago. I was putting lights up in our house a few days ago, on top of the cabinets, and when I stood up I hit my head on the ceiling. Andon was watching me so I said, "Oops, I bonked my head." So now everytime we go into the kitchen he points to the ceiling/lights and says, "Lights! Head... mama... bonk."



Andon has seen Santa twice, but really only likes it from a distance. When we get up to him, it turns into the above scene. Oh well, maybe next year. But he still does like to spot Santa in pictures or on decorations and say "Santa".

We saw a dusting of snow last weekend, it was so pretty falling from the sky, but we hope we'll see more than this before too long!
Unfortunately, Andon is sick right now, with croup, yuck! He's a little better today than he was yesterday. The croupy coughing isn't as bad, fever is down, and he's not having a hard time breathing like he was two nights ago. I'm bummed that he got sick so close to Christmas, because he's been well for so long, but hopefully it will be gone by next week.
Anyway,
I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!

Thanksgiving... a little late

Things have been busy around here the last few weeks, since we got home from Utah, where we spent Thanksgiving with our families.

We had a great trip and also got to spend a night away from Andon, which is our first one away together. We spent the night at the Anniversary Inn, in the Egyptian room, and got to go enjoy the lights at Temple Square and some of our favorite restaurants downtown.

I think Andon enjoyed all the attention and seeing all our friends and family. He has become such a mimic and tries to say everything he hears and copy what he sees people do. It's pretty entertaining.

Goofball

Andon just randomly started pulling at his ears the other day while saying "ears". He looked so funny, that I started laughing. He thought it must be pretty funny, so he would do it again and then laugh really hard, over and over!
Also, when he was being silly the other day, I told him he was goofy. He went over to his books, pulled out a Disney book, and turned to the page that had Goofy on it and said "Goofy". I was so surprised that he connected the two, when I haven't even really emphasized who the different characters are, and just say their names in passing while reading the book. Boy, it's sure fun to see this kid grow and learn!

Done with Crawling

Andon finally decided that walking is easier than crawling, and has almost exclusively been walking for about a week or so. I had to put another video of him walking because I still think it is so darn cute, and still can't believe this little guy walks!

My First Night Away

Last weekend I had my first 2 nights away from Andon, who is 16 and 1/2 months!

Some friends and I attended the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention and spent 2 nights in a hotel. It was a blast and so nice to have some time away to just hang out with the girls! I took 6 classes, shopped the vendor fair, and spent the rest of the time scrapping in the hotel room. I got so many pages finished and a lot of projects to finish now! It was so much fun!

Andon did great with Daddy and his Grandma (thanks again, by the way!) They said he hardly cried. It was a little weird when I got home and it took a few minutes for him to want to come to me. He looked at me, then stared away from me, just sitting in Grandma's arms. Then as I kept talking to him he finally slowly leaned toward me, and said "mama". Phew, I was a little nervous there for a second! But, I'm so glad to know that he did well while I was away!

Off to see the Wizard!

We got to dress up 3 times this year. We went to two Halloween parties, and then trunk-or-treat at our church on Halloween night. I've been warming Andon up to his lion costume for the past few weeks now, so he actually didn't mind wearing it last night (even though he looks sad in the picture). We had a fun time.
Chris and I were Smurfs 8 years ago, so since we had the costume, Chris decided to be Papa Smurf at his work party, since everyone at work calls him Smurf. He won funniest costume!

And our scary pumpkins we carved on Halloween day.

Pumpkin Patch

We made it out to a pumpkin patch just in time. I was worried we were going to miss it this year, but I went and picked Chris up during his lunch break today, and we had the perfect amount of time to pick out pumpkins, take some pictures, see the animals, and watch the tractor pull around the hayride (Andon loves tractors, so he didn't care about taking a hayride, just watching it.)

It's crazy to look back a year ago, and see how small he was!

Andon liked seeing the animals, he would say most of the names and make their sound, but when Chris tried to get him close to them, he wasn't too sure about it.

I love going, it was fun, and really makes it seem more like Fall and Halloween. And luckily, the rain held up while we were there, and it really wasn't that cold. Two years in a row, and many more to come, this will definitely be a tradition!