Christmas photos

Here are some photos from Christmas in Illinois. Thanks to Grandma Barb for the photos, as I forgot my camera!


Simon LOVES the house that Elise & Allison helped put together and color for Simon.


Here he is after sucking on a lemon wedge at the Pizza House for lunch on Friday. (His bib says "Who needs Santa when I have Grandma")


All dressed up for Christmas Eve services:


Did we mention that it was a very white Christmas?


Pointing out people in the pictures on the fridge with Grandpa Jim:


A visit from "Santa"!


Simon was a bit wary, but kind of excited:


He also loves his new bulldozer!


Feeding Teuer goldfish:


With Grandma Barb, after looking at the "bubbles" in the lights on the mantle:


We had a great weekend. Now looking forward to holidays, round 2 - New Year's in MN!

Sledding

Simon's big Christmas present from Grandma Barb and Grandpa Jim was a sled! It was delivered before Christmas, but we got permission to use it early since there was such great snow outside (yes - I'm over a week late getting this posted. Sorry!) Simon had lots of fun playing in the sled inside, and then having Daddy pull him around the yard outside. Good thing we now have such a big yard. Video at the end!

Sledding from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Christmas Card Photos, the best of the lot

We're off to Grandma Barb's and Grandpa Jim's. We leave you with the favorites of the Christmas Card photos. Merry Christmas all!

Indoor weekend fun, part 2

This past weekend, as our indoor activity, we took Simon to the mall. We went VERY early to try to avoid crowds - this particular mall opened earlier than usual to accommodate holiday shoppers. But thankfully, we got there before most of the masses arrived.

Simon enjoyed himself thoroughly, and Troy ran around with him while I got some shopping done. (Score!) He was most fascinated by the escalators and probably went up and down them 20+ times. It was amazing to see how quickly he picked up on the fact that when he got off, he needed to run around to the other side to get on going the other way.



These pictures don't at all capture the glee on his face as he rode up and down. He LOVED it!

Shoes

Simon has been trying really hard to put on his own shoes. This particular attempt though, was pretty futile for reasons I'm sure he does not entirely understand.






Look, I did it!

Christmas Card Photo Outtakes, part 1

Indoor fun

Now that it's winter, we'd been starting to assemble a list of places to go on the weekends with Simon, to get him out of the house and let him run around. We can play outside sometimes, but for days when it's REALLY cold and/or icy, we need someplace indoors. Our first recent venture was to the Jewish Community Center, which we have a membership with as Simon goes to their daycare. He's at their satellite site though, so we'd actually never been to the Community Center itself.

It was an enormous hit, and we're looking forward to going back this weekend to use the pool, too! For this visit, Simon was content to run around the kids play area, and particularly loved the big tree slide.


He ran around and around and around, and must have gone down the slide about 20 times.




He also liked the school bus!


Looking forward to heading there again this weekend!

Communicating

Simon's communication skills are improving almost daily. He says lots of different words now, which are briefly summarized on the sidebar of the blog. (If you actually read the blog rather than the Facebook reposts!) Interestingly, for a while he had the same problem I had as a kid, in that I insisted on calling both parents by one name. Both of my parents were "Daddy" for quite a while. When my parents finally got me to call my mom "Mommy," I started calling dad "Mommy" too! Fortunately, Simon has now stopped calling both of us "Dada" and now seems to have mastered the difference between "Dada" and "Mama."

In this video he uses his words for tubby ("tyub-bee" at its best), ball ("baow"), hot ("ot-ah"), and of course, "uh-oh". He also shakes his head "no" at my repeated attempts to get him to go upstairs for his bath! (Though he gives in at the end and heads for the stairs.)

Communicating from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Puzzle

Simon has really gotten the hang of his farm animals wooden puzzle that his GG got him for Christmas last year! We were very proud to see him matching the animals all by himself.

Puzzle from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Cookies

When they came for Thanksgiving, Grandma Barb and Grandpa Jim brought cookies and frosting for Simon! Unfortunately we weren't able to frost any cookies that afternoon as Simon had a tummy ache. But today was finally the day! Simon had lots of fun, though at first he was more interested in eating the frosting straight up rather than putting it on a cookie...

Snow!

Simon got his first chance to play outside in the snow yesterday! He absolutely HATES wearing mittens and let his opinion be known, until we got outside and he was so fascinated by the snow that he forgot to scream.

More videos from Thanksgiving

Here's a few more videos from the second half of Thanksgiving weekend at Gilbert Lake.

First, Simon "cleaning."

Cleaning from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Next, reading his current favorite book ("Goodnight Gorilla") with his great-grandma (GG).

Reading with GG from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

We had a great weekend seeing both sides of our family, and can't wait to do it again between Christmas and New Years!

Tupperware

Simon really likes playing in "his" drawer in the kitchen at Gilbert Lake. Prior to this video, he'd taken all of the tupperware out of the drawer and given it to his great-grandma Peg ("GG"). Here he is putting it all back. (Until the end....)

Tupperware from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving weekend, part 2

We spent the second half of Thanksgiving weekend at Gilbert Lake, where Simon had lots of fun seeing Grandma Karen, Grandpa Tom, GG and Aunt Biz. Here are some photos from our days there, including many of Simon "reading" with us, some where he is "helping" to clean, one where he shows just how much he apparently hates to wear mittens (we gave up and had to go inside), and some early attempts at Christmas photos (ha ha).