Christmas

Christmas morning was so much fun this year! Wyatt slept in, giving Ross and I some alone time to relax and have hot chocolate before the present opening commenced. It was snowing and it was so quiet and peaceful and we laughed about how this will be our last low-key Christmas for a long, long time.

Like usual, our families were more than generous and had a ton of gifts for Wyatt to open but the Elmo plush doll that we put in his stocking was the morning's highlight. Here is the cutest video of Wyatt seeing Elmo for the first time...



We had a big breakfast together and Wyatt got in a long nap before we headed up to Julie's house for more Christmas festivities. All of Ross' siblings were in town from California so it was an extra special day for the family.

That night, we went to Nancy's house for a big Christmas dinner and yes, more present opening. Wyatt officially has way too many toys now and we are quickly running out of room to store all of the books, stuffed animals and gadgets. I hope his baby brother doesn't plan on adding any stuff to this house or we are going to have to move into a bigger house!

Snowed In

It has dumped nearly six inches of snow today so we wrestled Wyatt back into his snow gear and headed out for a walk around the block. It was Wyatt's first snow experience and he thought all of that cold white stuff was pretty neat. He fell down a couple of times and was unable to get up on his own but within a few minutes looked like a pro navigating the knee-deep snow in his new snow boots.

Christmas Tree Farm

We ventured out for our Christmas tree on Tuesday and wound up at a century-old family-owned place in Carnation. It was only 25 degrees out so we bundled Wyatt up in his snow gear and made our trek around the farm. We ended up back at the first tree we saw at the entrance, a Turkish Fir, and the tree now sits proudly in our front room.

Wyatt had a great time circling around the trees and even helped daddy with the saw when it came time to cut down the tree. He even found a way to get tree sap all over his mittens for the true "cutting down your own tree" experience.

I bought Wyatt a Santa ornament in their Gift Shop to help remind us of our first and last tree farm trip as a family of three.

A Christmas Story

Everyone remembers that classic Christmas movie "A Christmas Story" where the mom bundles the kids up in so many layers of winter clothes that their arms are sticking out wide. Here is the Wyatt Tucci version.

We plan on going snowshoeing with Ross' entire family during the holidays so we picked up some winter gear for Wyatt, including this snow suit, hat and mittens. We also have some waterproof boots and mittens in preparation for those family snowball fights.

It is freezing here today, literally, with a high of 25 degrees. That sounds cold until you see a low of 15 degrees looming for tonight. Luckily for us, the moisture has completely missed us so far so we have no snow or ice. It's not supposed to get above freezing here all week, which they say is our coldest spell since 1990.

Wyatt and I "played" outside for about 5 minutes today until he walked to the door, telling me it was way too cold to be going for a stroll (not to mention he kept falling down from all of his layers.)

Wyatt has finally learned to smile on command this week, thus the cheesy smiles in these pictures. Here he is "helping" daddy in the kitchen (AKA pulling every pot, pan and piece of Tupperware out of the cabinets and scattering it about the floor to make an obstacle course for Ross to navigate while cooking dinner.

November Update

I've been getting an ear full about my lack of blogging this month (Nick) so I thought I'd catch you all up with a series of photos and videos since I last posted. Every day Wyatt "asks" us to play music by dancing next to the computer, which is our cue to launch iTunes and he rocks out. Here is is getting his grove on to a Kenny Chesney video on CMT. (He also liked the music during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade). The booty shaking is the newest addition to his dance repertoire and is a nice compliment to the old stand-by of bobbing up and down and swinging his arms in the air like a go-go dancer.



This next video is of his new favorite toy, a ride-on or push fire truck sent over by his great-aunt Val (thanks Val, he LOVES it). Wyatt will sit on this thing and push the buttons for up to 20 minutes at a time while rocking back and forth (thank goodness it has volume control). He even likes to make the toy more interesting by standing on the seat instead of sitting. This is the same trick he does on his rocking horse which scares the heck out of me. It's like he thinks he's in the rodeo or something!

My parents visited us earlier this month and we had a great time. I wasn't sure how affectionate Wyatt was going to be with them since he's pretty wary of anyone but Mom and Dad right now but we were all pleasantly surprised when he climbed into their laps the first day and snuggled with them all week long. He even said "Grandpa" and "Nana", much to our surprise and delight.

Other words Wyatt is saying include: mama, daddy, puppy, fish, up, shoes, keys, car, bad (as in "Bad shoe for tripping me."), yum, cheese, yogurt, apple, cracker, cookie (you can thank Nana for that one, luckily he thinks granola is a cookie too) and baby.

He also is mastering various "signs", including bye-bye, more (food), all done, bad (shakes his finger), thumbs up, high five and blowing kisses, which he only saves for Nana, Granddad and Auntie Tee-Tee.

Here are some photos to our trip to the park.



We had a great Thanksgiving at Nancy's house along with Julie, the kids and Ross' grandparents who made the drive up from California. I realized late that I only took this picture, it's of Wyatt eating veggies and ranch dip. He pretty much was shoveling the dip in by the truck load and was just sucking it off the carrots. Oh well, it's the best day of the year to eat as much "bad stuff" as you want, right?

These last pictures were taken tonight. Wyatt climbed into my dress shoes and was carrying around his Halloween pail, while pushing his fire truck toy before he abandoned the toy and entertained himself by wearing the bucket on his head.

That's my boy..

Best Halloween EVER!!

Halloween night had to be one of the best nights of my life!! We went over to Julie's house so Wyatt could trick-or-treat with his cousins and he had a blast with Dracula (Noah), a pirate (Elijah), a fairy (Olivia) and Darth Vader (Zion)! I really didn't know what to expect from him and was concerned that he may even be scared of the other costumes and going up to strangers to get candy but he acted like it was no big deal. He carried his pumpkin pail on his shoulder (I guess purse carrying prepared him for this) and willingly knocked on each door we walked him to.

My favorite part of the night was when an older woman came to the door and put a Baby Ruth candy bar in his pail. He looked at it, then her, then looked at her mini pumpkin arrangement by the door. Before I knew it he helped himself to a pumpkin and put it into the pail. It was by far his favorite treat of the night and he has been playing with it ever since.

Wyatt has been mooching candy off of me ever since whenever he sees me raid his candy pail. (I mean come on, I can't let a one-year old eat candy now can I and it's not like I'm going to throw it out!!) The other day I broke off a tiny piece of Kit-Kat to give him after much begging. No sooner had he inhaled it did he grab the rest of the candy bar out of my hand and shove it into his mouth all at once. It was so big that he had to readjust it in his mouth sideways and it was still poking out through his huge grin. I think he may be hooked...

My camera pooped out on me before Halloween night began so I'll have to add photos to this blog once Cainen can e-mail me some he shot with his camera.

On a baby note, #2 has been moving around a lot lately. He started slithering around in there the night we learned of his gender and is starting the kicking this week. The kicking isn't strong enough for Ross to feel yet but I think we're getting close. I am nearly 6 months pregnant and know we will get to the finish line shortly. I'm trying to get Ross to start thinking about baby names so #2 doesn't have to endure 10 days nameless like his big brother.

Speaking of big brother, the other morning Ross asked Wyatt where his little brother was and Wyatt came over to me and lifted up my shirt and patted my belly before hugging it. How did he know that?!!! Man, this kid is SMART! Now I ask him where HIS baby is and he lifts up his own shirt. Too cute!

Happy Halloween

Wyatt will be Trick or Treating for the first time this year as Yoda. He loves his hat with the giant ears but I think he thinks he is going as a goat.