Candidate for cheapest toy ever

Crayon, free.
Kid's cup with lid, free with meal.
Keeping Alan happy during dinner, priceless!

Alan loves Fanny Panda

It's no secret that Alan loves pandas. The other morning, Alan was particularly attached to one of his newest pandas, Fanny. He tried to pull her through the slats of the crib (rather difficult since he was pulling the front legs through one gap and the back legs through another). Mommy lifted Fanny out of the crib for him and he carried her to the top of the stairs.

There he met a new challenge. He wanted to go down stairs to play with his big brother, but didn't want to let go of Fanny either. Alan normally goes down the stairs backwards on his hands and knees. Necessity being the mother of invention, he went down on his bum, using one hand to lower himself step by step while the other hand held on to Fanny. It was slow going, but eventually they made it down the landing!

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Preschool Christmas Party

Today was Kevin's preschool Christmas party. The teachers ordered pizza and Mommy finally got a chance to use her Wilton Gingerbread Man cake pan. Kevin decorated the cake with M&Ms for his little friends.






He turned out pretty good looking! Too bad we're going to EAT him!

The party started with Pizza! Alan didn't care for the pizza, but he was pretty fascinated with all that Kevin's school room had to offer - computers, big sunny windows, interesting cubbies full of stuff!









After lunch, we went to the other classroom to decorate cookies, dance and exchange books.


Ms. Anna shows off Kevin's cake


Alan takes a break in the middle of the dancing


Kevin and Alan boogie


Books!


Alan and Kevin at the Lego table

After the book exchange, it was time to head home for Alan's nap and for Kevin to finish his day at school. What a fun party!

Air Life Santa 2009

For the fifth year in a row, we have gone to the hospital where the boys were born for their Christmas fair, complete with pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Now that it's during the second week of December, the picture doesn't make our Christmas card, but we are still making our annual ornament. The event was much bigger this year since they combined it with the Stone Oak Winter Festival. We liked it better in earlier years when it was smaller and friendlier to the little ones. It was hard navigating Alan's stroller around. However, with the combined events, there were two lines to see Santa Claus (nudge nudge wink wink). I'm glad we got the one with Santa and Mrs. Claus since that has been our Christmas tradition since Kevin was born.





When we were done, whom should we meet in the hallway but Doc Murdock, Mommy's OB through both pregnancies and the one who was there for Alan's birth. Since she hadn't seen Mommy since last January, she hadn't heard about Alan's illness, but she was so happy to see how big the boys have grown.

Elf Yourself 2009

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Random Cuteness

With Kevin's school and therapy, getting Alan ready for the next stage of his treatment, and the holiday season, we have been very busy. Of course, the boys are never too busy to be adorable. There are too many small moments to dedicate a post to each thing, but here is a random sampling:

• Kevin is really into Santa Claus this year, so much that when we were reading Peter Rabbit at bedtime, he called out "Santa Claus!" when he saw Mr. McGregor with his long white beard.
  
  
• Alan and Kevin have taken to hiding underneath Tackley, the giant stuffed panda that Alan got for his birthday. We'll often find Tackley upside down with his butt in the air and the boys' legs sticking out from under him. Yesterday, Kevin was under Tackley and Alan decided to belly flop the both of them.
  
  


• Kevin loves Ni Hao Kai Lan, the Nick Jr show that teaches kids how to speak Mandarin. One thing Kai Lan does at the beginning of many episodes is to tickle Mr. Sun awake. Kevin loves to tickle along with Kai Lan, and Alan has started to tickle Mr. Sun too! One of the few non-gadget items that Alan likes is the Kai Lan's Great Trip to China DVD case. He loves carrying it around, but since he also occasionally sits on it, Mommy made a photocopy of the cover and put it in an old empty case for his personal use.


• The boys now share a bedroom, which is adorable all on it's own. We hear a lot of laughter and back and forth babbling between them, but when we hear Alan cackling away gleefully, we know it's time to go upstairs and tell Kevin to get back into bed, because it means that he's climbed into the crib with Alan.


• With them going to bed in the same room, we've started having Kevin give Alan a good night kiss. He'll often ask to be picked up so he can give Alan another kiss in the crib. Last night, while we were heading into the room for bed time, Kevin ran over to Alan and gave him a big kiss on his fuzzy head.


• We've been calling Alan "Magic Head" because of his current resemblance to Gus on "Psych". For some reason, Kevin just loves that and often says "Alan has a Magic Head!" out of the blue.


• Alan has become a real ham. It started the night of his birthday, when there were two or three cameras going. With all the flashes and "Cheese!"s, Alan started saying "Cheese!" too ("Cheese" is his second word, if you count "Yay" as his first word). Now it's almost impossible to take a candid shot of him (unless you catch him with the first shot) because if he hears or sees a flash, he'll perk up, look for the camera, grin and say "Cheese!". Unless of course we actually WANT him to look at the camera. We are currently 0 for 3 in the Santa picture enterprise.
  
  


• Alan loves making kissy noises, while Kevin prefers his personalized "Mmm-dah!". Kevin gives lots of kisses, but Alan gave Mommy two big smacks on the lips this morning for the first time.
  
  
• The boys love airplanes, just like their Daddy. The warthog video is now part of their bedtime routine, and Kevin is now singing along with "Thud Pilot" by Dick Jonas and naming the various model airplanes Daddy has hanging from the game room.
  
  
• Finally, a random Kevin picture. Mommy didn't notice that Kevin was making a "Peace" sign until a friend pointed it out.
  
  
  

Panda-monium

Ever since his encounter with Panda at the American Cancer Society's Cancer Kids Halloween Party, Alan has been completely in love with pandas. We have been getting him panda toys and books ever since, and so have our friends.

We got him a Kung Fu Panda cake for his birthday of course. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, along with Po, Master Sifu and Mistress Tiger.



The first stuffed panda Alan opened was Ming, a small Ty beanie baby from Jaz and Em. So soft!



Poor Ming - Alan decided to rub his head on her, and then subjected her to a belly flop. That's no way to treat a lady!



The next one he opened was Ping, the Zoobie stuffed animal/pillow/blanket from Mommy and Daddy.



Ping is much better equipped to handle the belly flops, especially when she's in pillow mode.



Ming jumps on Ping! Yay! Alan's pandas know how he likes to play. How funny that Alan's first two pandas are named for his Auntie Janet (Ming) and his Mommy (Ping). Auntie Chelle found a panda toothbrush holder and a panda luggage tag for him. Then he got a third panda from Mackenzie, whom we have named Buddy (because Auntie Jenn found him at HEB).

The latest addition to Alan's group of pandas came from Auntie Neil - 30 inches tall sitting, which is just enough room for Alan to lean against and tuck his head under it's chin.



We decided to name him Tackley, since he is big enough for Alan to tackle. Here is a video of Alan's first encounter with Tackley.

Another Hill Country Christmas

Once again, we got VIP preview tickets to Schlitterbahn's Hill Country Christmas. We had so much fun last year, so we were looking forward to going with Daddy this year. We enjoyed the "snow" and Christmas lights blinking to Christmas music!

We were worried with the rain earlier in the day, but it stopped in time for us to enjoy the lights and meant it wasn't crowded at all. There was no line up to see Santa and we got story time with Mrs. Claus all to ourselves! We were having a time getting both boys to smile and look at the camera at the same time, but then Daddy broke out the Aerosmith. At first, the girls behind the camera looked at Daddy like he was crazy, then they saw the boys grinning and bobbing their heads to the music and started laughing.

It started sprinkling again so we went into Mrs. Claus's story time. Alan preferred to roam around, but Kevin sat on Daddy's lap for the first story. He was a little nervous at first, not wanting to go over to Mrs. Claus to choose a story book. By the second story, he was off Daddy's lap and choosing another book for Mrs. Claus to read. Finally, Mommy chose a book about Rudolph, which had a button for Kevin to press which lit up Rudolph's nose!

After more lights and a snack, we headed home after changing the boys into fuzzy PJs. Alan fell asleep on the way home, but Kevin held on long enough to brush his teeth. What a fun outing!

Working out

Kevin has been having so much fun following along with Mommy's workout that we set up a workout just for him on the Wii. Here is Kevin finishing off a Sun Salutation. We're so proud of him!

Trick or ReTreat 2009

It's the 9th Annual Trick or ReTreat, our neighbourhood pizza picnic and costume parade. For the last several years, Auntie Chelle has joined us for the festivities.



Alan loved running around the cul-de-sac! Mommy and Daddy took turns running after him as he headed down the street until he decided to stick to the cul-de-sac under the watchful eye of one of the neighbourhood girls.




Kevin tried his basket on his head like a helmet. Maybe Mommy should have gotten the matching ball cap after all!



This was Kevin's first year trick-or-treating around the Circle. Here he is basket at the ready!



Before we start the treat gathering though, we need to take a group picture! It's like herding cats!



Kevin had fun and wanted to choose his own treats!



We finished off next door, then it was off to a late bed time. Auntie Chelle took Alan home for bath time and bed with Daddy about half way around the Circle.



Auntie Chelle slept over and watched Kung Fu Panda with Mommy and Daddy after the boys were in bed. The next morning, Auntie Chelle had some PJ/bed head snuggle time with Kevin and Alan.