Children's Museum

Alex and I kicked off winter break with a trip to the Minnesota Children's Museum today with Karla and Bailey. Alex and Bailey had a great time checking out all of the neat exhibits. It was fun to watch them jump right in and start playing with everything they could find.

Happy Birthday Henry!

One of our favorite little buddies turned two yesterday. Alex was so lucky to get to help Henry celebrate his special day. The day was complete with cookies for breakfast (thanks to Aunt Sara!), playing with Thomas, and a first trip to Chuckee Cheese. You can see their recap on Henry's blog. Happy birthday Henry!!

Wolf Family Christmas Party

We had a great time at the Wolf Christmas party last Saturday in Wisconsin. Despite a very short nap, Alex was great the entire day. He had a blast playing with everyone, especially some of Andy's cousins. I think he really felt like a "big kid" that day.

Playing catch with Gabe

Hanging out with Uncle Jeff

It was very entertaining watching the Wii dance party.

Alex could not get enough of wrestling with Levi.

He loved tackling him!

Luke, Alex, Gabe, and Cameron

Alex spent over an hour playing Uno Attack with

the boys. He was fascinated with putting the cards

in and shooting them back out again.

So Close to Sitting With Santa

I decided to dress Alex up and take him over to meet Santa this afternoon. I was fully prepared for a meltdown and expected to come away with another sad face picture (see last year's picture), if we even made it that far. I did my best to prepare Alex. We talked about Santa on the way to the mall. We watched Santa from the second story of the mall as he took pictures with other kids. Then we waited in line talking about how fun it was going to be and practiced our smile. I was surprised that Alex seemed okay with the idea and wasn't saying, "No Santa. No Santa." We made it all the way up to his turn, took two steps towards Santa, and then the anxiety set in! Alex turned his head, wrapped his arms around me, and then the tears started. There was no way he was going near Santa so Santa convinced me to sit down with him too. Mrs. Claus did a decent job of distracting Alex. You can barely even tell that he's crying and I'm strapping his arms down! You can tell from my lovely appearance- maroon sweatshirt (Could anything clash worse with red?!), ponytail, no makeup- that I was not prepared for my Santa photo. Oh well, maybe by next year Alex will be excited to meet Santa.

Blizzard

We got hit with a nasty snow storm this weekend, which dumped somewhere around 20" of snow on us, followed by -20 degree wind chills. The pictures don't do it justice but you can at least get an idea of the massive amounts of snow. It certainly would have been nice to have a snowblower this weekend but at least I have the next best thing- a fabulous husband with a shovel.

our front lawn

buried mailbox

sidewalk

2 Year Check-Up

Alex had his 2 year check-up last week. He weighed in at 32 pounds and 34.5" tall. He is a healthy boy and everything looked great. Even the innocent heart murmur he has had since birth is now gone.

Toy Time

Alex has been very busy this week breaking in all of his new toys. He is one lucky and happy boy.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Alex!!

I can't believe Alex is two years old already! Happy birthday to the little boy that fills our house and hearts with never ending smiles, joy, and love every single day! We had a wonderful time celebrating Alex's 2nd birthday with family and friends on Saturday with a Thomas the Tank Engine party. Alex came down with a fever 5 hours before the start of his party but luckily the fever broke and he was able to enjoy his party. We'd like to extend a big thank you to all of the family and friends that were able to come celebrate with us!

Part 1: The Food!

The Alex fruit pizza decorated by Aunt Jill

Thomas and Friends cupcakes

Amazing cookies by Aunt Sara which

even taste as good as they look!

Part II: The Fun!

Birthday boy with his balloons!

Ball pit fun with Henry

Jack

Andy and Wyatt

Snack break with Bailey

Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving complete with great food and great company. The Lerner family came for a weekend visit, which was really nice. Alex especially loved the extra attention and having more people to build block towers and play trains with.

Happy Birthday Wyatt!

Last weekend we got to celebrate Alex's friend Wyatt's first birthday, who happens to share a birthday with Alex. We had a great time. Happy birthday little guy!

Children's Museum

Last weekend I snuck away for a girls' weekend while Alex and Dad spent some quality time together. The boys spent Saturday at the Children's Museum and then went out for lunch and watched the Badgers play on tv. I'm pretty sure we all had a great weekend!

Up to No Good

Lesson learned: When you hear Alex making noise but you're not exactly sure what he's doing, he's probably up to no good. Alex thought it would be a fun game to take every single shoe out of the closet. Unfortunately he didn't think it was nearly as fun to put them back in!

Busted!

"Who did this? Wasn't me!"

"Since the shoes are already out, I mine as well

run through them like a pile of leaves."

Happy Halloween!

Alex was a member of the Lightning McQueen pit crew this year for Halloween. Rather than hitting up the neighborhood we went to Hallzooween at the Minnesota Zoo for trick-or-treating. It was nice because it was inside and they gave out a variety of things rather than just all candy. Alex did a great job going up to the stations to get his treats. If it were up to him, he would just hold all of his treats in his hands but he started to realize after awhile that there were too many things to hold and the bag came in handy. I think he was pretty tired out by the end of the day because he actually asked to go "night-night" tonight.

Ready to go with all of his pit crew tools

Yummy fruit snacks

Such a big boy!

More treats!

Checking out the loot!

Pumpkin Carving

Alex and I carved our pumpkin yesterday. He was intrigued by it and was a good little helper. He'd pick up the seeds that fell out but wanted nothing to do with touching the goop with his hands.