Over the hills and through the woods

Ok, part of the reason for a lack in posts is because we've been travelling a lot in the last two weeks to visit grandparents. We figure that this will be the last month where we do any long road trips since I'm approaching 7 months pregnant. Two weeks ago we drove to Hilton Head for some much needed R&R while G&G Terreri gave us a break and watched Evan for the weekend. It had been a long week with the toddler bed transitioning.... suffice to say that we ALL lost a lot of sleep. It is going much better now, and although Evan still wakes once or twice during the night, we are able to walk him back to bed and he falls back to sleep easily. Getting him to fall asleep at naptime is still a struggle, but it's coming along. Today was a little bit of a setback though-- it took Jason 3 hours to get Evan to fall asleep.

Anyway, back to our travels. Hilton Head was a nice little break-- so much so that we don't have any pictures to show for it! A few days after we got back, we left again to see family in Florida. Coincidentally, we hit the road the same afternoon that it decided to snow/sleet/hail/rain in Georgia. Snow?! We live in the "South"!! Our 8 hour trip to Sarasota turned into 9+ hours. My uncle Warren was nice enough to let us stay in his beachside condo. Unfortunately, the weather during our trip didn't allow for much sun bathing. It was cold, rainy and tropical-storm-like windy. We still had a great time though visiting with "Nana" (my mom), Uncle Nate, Aunt Rachel, Great Grandpa Donnie and Great Grandma Bonnie (pictured above with Evan), Great Aunt Nellie and Great Uncle Rich. Evan was doted on by all. He was great for almost the whole trip. Given the fact that he stayed up late every night, ate "vacation" food (ie, pizza, whip cream, diet Pepsi), and spent hours in the car, he was a real trooper. We didn't take as many pics as we would have liked, so here is a small selection.

My grandparents' back yard lanai has a lovely water feature, which Evan quickly discovered a short time after our arrival. Oh yeah, he had a LOT of fun with this.

There was one small window of time when it was nice enough to visit the beach.

Bullit was pooped after 4 days with his yellow lab girlfriend, Belle. Yes, this is Bullit, asleep, covered up, in our bed.

Show me your....tummy!

Yes loyal readers, I've been on blog hiatus. No particular reason; to be honest, I was shocked to see that my last post was Jan 5! Oh well. A few updates to follow.

Evan gets a little enthusiastic about showing off his tummy/belly button. Jason's happy that he's not a little girl-- that could start a bad habit!

Jason modified one of his running visors and Evan loves to wear it around the house.

My new assistant

He's a great multi-tasker!

Big changes

In preparation for #2, we started to transition Evan to a "big boy" bed. The process began last night. Jason disassembled the crib, assembled the toddler bed and set it up with all of Evan's crib snugglies. For the next hour after it was set up we all had such fun watching Evan climb in and out, jump on his new bed, giggle, laugh, squeal....






The real fun began about an hour later when we started the night-night process. Evan first went down at 8:15. He was up and down in and out of his room every minute until about 8:30 (not bad). Then, after he realized he was supposed to stay in his room, he would only come to the door, crack it open, stick his head out until he saw us, then slam it closed and run back to his bed, crying. This continued until about 9:30, when he finally gave in and fell asleep. "Success!" we thought. "We broke him!" we said, pleased with our parenting ability and impressed with Evan's understanding of the new concept. We settled onto the couch to watch some TV before bed. At around 11, we wearily climbed into bed after a long week, ready for some restful sleep. Sleep? Yes. Restful it was not. We took turns returning Evan to bed at 12:30, 12:45, 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00..........long break.....5:00, and he finally woke, happy, for the day at 7:30 am. The key, which we realized around 3 am, was turning on his night light. He didn't like waking up to a pitch black room. All in all, considering this was such a big change, we felt it went well. We're hoping, however, that the process will get easier in the next few days.

New Year's

Our friends the Bergers invited us over for New Year's eve dinner. We ended up staying for New Year's day breakfast and dinner. It was fun, low-key and we had great food. I'm not sure if we'll be invited back next year seeing as how Evan woke everyone up around 7:30 am. Jason and I expected this; our friends--sans children--were a little less prepared.

Evan rang in his new year in a crate.

Little percussionist

Evan's buddy Tai got a new set of drums for Chistmas-- a real set of drums. We went over to their house for dinner last weekend and Evan got a chance to play a few sets. He's a natural! I suggested we buy a set for our house; Jason said he could play the triangle.