videos

Here is another video of the epic snowball fight.

We don't have a mirror at Alan's height anywhere in our house so he doesn't get to see his reflection very often. Alan could see himself in G-ma and G-pa's bathroom mirror and I got a kick out of watching Alan wiggle his eyebrows, wrinkle his nose, and stick out his tongue as he washed his hands. Here is a video of Alan and Grandma pulling faces in the mirror.

Fun with Family

Here are a few more pictures from our Christmas vacation. The picture below is of Grandma Bassett and Alan. Grandma was letting Alan "play" the guitar. He loved it!Alan and James (his cousin) had fun playing in the tub with Conner's new bath toys. Alan and James look quite a bit alike: they are about the same height and build, and they both have blonde hair and blue eyes.

Reed's brother, Russ, came on Saturday with his 3 kids. We were very excited to see them (we hadn't seen Hudson, Kelcie and Boyce for 2 years). In the picture below the kids are playing right before we had to leave to go home. L-R; Kelcie, James, Alan, Hudson

I love the picture below of Conner and Baer. Conner liked stroking Baer's back and Baer (unlike Alan) seemed to enjoy it.

Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas at the Bassetts this year. Reed's sister, Jackie, and her husband and 2 sons were there as well.
Christmas Eve night was quite a short night. Alan woke up around 12 am crying (he had a cold and wasn't sleeping well at all). So for the first time in Alan's life we let him sleep in bed with us. Then I remembered one of the reasons we don't usually let him do that: we don't get any sleep. We finally took Alan back to his bed at 4:30. I was just starting to drift off when Conner woke up at 4:45. I fed him but Conner didn't go back to sleep. By 6 am everyone was upstairs. Alan stumbled up the stairs last and as soon as he saw James he walked over and said "Hey James, do you want to build a snowman with me?" James just starred at Alan: he was probably thinking "I just woke up and it is cold and dark outside, are you nuts?" That is what I would have thought. The day before we told Alan that James was going to come that night and that maybe the next day they could build a snowman together. Apparently that stuck in his mind because he completely ignored the presents and went straight over to James to ask him. We told the boys to go pick out a present and Alan dug through the presents until he found a big one that he had been eyeing since we left home. Here is a picture of him dragging it out:As soon as Alan opened one present he just wanted to play with it. Below is a picture of Alan and James playing with his train set.

The only thing Alan asked from Santa was an egg and he was pretty excited to get it.
Conner had 2 very eager volunteers to help him open his presents. Part way through the present opening he fell asleep so we let him finish his presents later.

As you can see our Christmas was great, we all got spoiled and it was so nice to spend Christmas with family.

The weather outside is frightful!

I guess that depends on your point of view. If you are driving a front wheel drive van that keeps getting stuck in the driveway or on the hill leading up to the house then the weather is frightful. I am glad that Dad and Spencer have vehicles that are capable of towing our van because we needed it more times than I care to remember. Alan thought it was great when we got towed because it reminded him of "Cars" (his favorite movie). However if you just want to go out and play in the snow then the weather is great! We tried to make a snow man but the snow was too dry so it turned into a snow ball fight!!
Dad took us toboganning behind his jeep. He pulled Reed and Alan around by the house and then they went down the hill.

Here are Conner and Grandma enjoying some chilly fresh air.

Family snow photo.

This is the first time I have tried to post a video. Hope it works. Alan and James were ganging up on Reed.

Visiting Santa

We took Alan to the local zoo here to see Santa. He was really excited with the idea. When he saw Santa he went running up to him and stopped about three feet in front of him and just started talking. He wasn't shy at all until I tried to get Alan to sit on Santa's lap for a picture and then he didn't want to get too close. He finally stood next to him for a picture. When Santa asked Alan what he wanted for Christmas Alan said: "An egg". That didn't seem to phase Santa who said "Okay". Alan was refering to a kinder surprise chocolate egg, in case you were wondering.

Let it Snow!

A couple of weeks ago Alan and I read a book called "The first snowfall". Ever since then he has been waiting for it to snow. It snowed last night and this morning when Alan woke up he was so excited. He dragged me out of my room this morning so that we could look out the window together and he could tell me all the things that are covered with snow. Then I put his cold weather clothes on and he went outside to help Reed shovel and brush the cars off. Then Alan found a frisbee and he and Reed played frisbee in the snow. They had so much fun together! Then Alan came in and I gave him some hot chocolate because that is what the girl in the story does to warm up. Alan thoroughly loved the whole experience - he was even excited that his cheeks were red (because that happened to the girl in the story too). The only thing we missed was seeing a pink snow plow (the snow plow in the book is pink). We told Alan that there are no pink snow plows around here but I don't think he believed us.

Talkative Alan

Alan was talking to Grandma and Grandpa Bassett tonight on the phone and this is how the conversation went (I can't remember exactly what he said but this is the gist of it):
Alan: "Hi. My balloon popped. Yeah, yeah, my balloon floated up to the ceiling and then it popped and I cried." [this event happened 3 months ago at Walmart and he still talks about it all the time, I think it traumatized him. A nice lady gave him a pink helium balloon and I tied it to his wrist. Apparently I didn't tie it tight enough because while we were standing in the check out line I saw out of the corner of my eye the balloon float away. Alan just stared at it as it went higher and higher and when it hit the ceiling it popped and Alan let out a blood-curdling shriek and then he buried his face in my legs and started to sob. He screamed so loud that all the check out people and customers for several aisles on either side went silent and stared at us.]
The next thing he said surprised Reed and I:
Alan: "You live far away and James (his cousin who lives in Kansas City) lives far away. You both live far away and we have to drive for a long time. We drove for a long time in Daddy's car to see you and I had to go potty but mom and dad said no. Mom and dad said it was okay for me to go potty in my diaper, so I did." [At this point Reed and I busted up laughing. Confession time - when we were travelling back from our visit to Canada last month we were stopped in a long line at the border. Alan chose this moment to announce that he needed to go potty. The line was pretty long so we just told Alan that he would have to wait or that he could just go in his pull-up. Well, he is potty trained so he was pretty resistant to that idea but finally he got desperate and went.]
Alan has never talked about that before and it happened more than a month ago. I had no idea he still remembered it. I have a feeling that won't be the last time that Alan announces things over the phone that we didn't expect.

For Thanksgiving we went to the church with several other families and had a big pot luck dinner. There was so much food! It was all yummy. Then we cleaned up and played games for the rest of the day. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I forgot to bring our camera to take pictures.