Bus Ride

Last year on our trip to New York Evan took his first subway ride, so this year he took his first bus ride:

(The second picture is obviously not very good, and redundant.  I just thought it looked cool.)

I'm not sure what we'll do next year... he's already taken his first ferry trip in Seattle, and there have been plenty of airplane rides.  Maybe we'll need to do something in a hot air balloon, or possibly a horse-drawn carriage.

Stair Master

Evan was able to walk down the stairs in my Mom & Dad's coop all by himself (it helps that there are only 2 stairs):

Thanksgiving

We made the annual trip back east for Thanksgiving like always, again to my cousins' house in Columbus, OH.  Here's Evan the day of in his as-close-to-formal-wear-as-he-gets (which is not that close) outfit:


The weather was nicer this year than last, but we still didn't make it outside.  We again spent a disproportionate amount of our time playing Wii games, this year mostly Guitar Hero.  I was able to beat the devil in the final duel, though, so it wasn't entirely wasted time. ;-)  Anyway, here are Evan and Steph investigating the assortment of baby toys available while others are rocking out to the game:


Evan had an especially good time playing with this tricycle thingy (you can here the serenade of the video game in background):

In addition to playing with his cousin Lauren's foreign toys Evan was also fascinated by my cousin Josh's huge aquarium, which will make his uncle Brian (a pescaphyle) very happy:


Sticking with Metz family tradition the kids put on a play for the adults one night.  This year the play was based on Spider Man (a couple of the little cousins are pretty much obsessed with Spider Man), and Evan was cast as Baby Spider Man:


Also sticking with Metz family tradition Evan opted out of actually performing, preferring to stay off stage right where he could play with his legos.

Mohawk

We tried out a new hairstyle for Evan in the bath today:


He looks fairly happy with it there, but he started making a pouty face pretty quickly. We couldn't catch it on film, but here's my best approximation:

Under/Over

Evan's vocabulary is constantly growing, and fast!  He's recently started to understand several sets of opposites like in/out, up/down, and over/under:

Who Came to Gym Today?

We take Evan to a class at the YMCA a few times a week called "1-2-3 Grow."  (When I say "we" I mostly mean Steph, but I get to take him on my off Fridays.)  The kids all sit around in a circle gorging themselves on hot dogs and mac 'n cheese and then concentrate as hard as they can on being taller.  OK, I'm obviously kidding about that, although I think I read somewhere that Fox Reality is working on a show based around the same idea.  "1-2-3 Grow" is actually a toddler class where the kids play with a variety of balls, blocks, scooters, hula hoops and jungle gyms, and learn to sing songs and stuff like that.

They sing most of the little kid stand-byes ("The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "The Wheels on the Bus," "If You're Happy and You Know It," etc.), but Evan's favorite is the very first song of the class, "Who Came to Gym Today?":

Toddler Sleepover

It was time for our friend Dan's birthday again, and because of all the kids that were going to be in attendance anyway they decided to turn the party into a toddler sleepover of sorts.  Dan and Michelle have a plethora of Pak 'N' Plays (I'm not sure how having twins results in four Pak 'N' Plays -- there's some type of weird multiplier in play -- but it is fortunate in such situations), so they turned all the bedrooms of their house into a short-term baby hotel (or more like a hostel, really).  That way the adults could continue to have a pleasant evening doing adult things (eating, drinking, conversing with other adults, etc.) past 7 o'clock.  All-in-all a pretty good idea.

Guess what, though... pictures of adults talking (or at least just adults) aren't nearly as interesting as pictures of toddlers playing, so we only have pictures of the first part of the evening.  I doubt you'll mind.

Anyway, here's Evan trying to play with 3 different kinds of toys at the same time:

The feature linking these 3 disparate toys together, of course, is that they are the best kind of toy possible -- someone else's.

Here he is experimenting with using someone else's baby cell phone:

I don't remember what the conversation he was having was about.  I think it looks like he's trying to work a movie deal of some kind, but you should feel free to make up your own backstory.

Penguin Dance

As I'm sure you'll agree, one of the most important aspects of pulling off a costume is being able to dance the part. To that end here's Evan doing his best interpretation of a penguin dance:

Penguin Librarian

Evan certainly loves to read (or at least be read to), but what he enjoys even more is unshelving all his books until he finds just the right one:

Now, why was he in his penguin costume for this? Why not?

Halloween

I mentioned a few posts ago that there would be more pictures of Evan in his Halloween costume forthcoming, and I'm a man of my word.

We tried to stick with the penguin theme and incorporate the fish from his fishbowl toy, but all of the shots with him holding it didn't turn out so well. You can see it on the coffee table behind him here, though:

I suppose if we were truly committed to the penguin photo theme this picture would have included a bowl of fish, or at least scrimp, but we already had the candy prepared. Besides, we didn't plan this shot, it's just the kind of thing kids do this time of year:

Last year we didn't even leave the house on Halloween, but since Evan can walk now it seemed like a shame not to show him off a bit. Here are he and Steph while we're out trick-or-treating:

And last, here is a shot of our little family after making the rounds at our neighbors' houses:

I Did It

Evan likes to announce his accomplishments whenever the opportunity arises, even for simple things like putting on a watch:

Of course, when you're less than a year and a half old putting on a watch is not so simple, is it?

Pumpkin Carving

We went to our friends Rob and Tracy's house today for their annual pumpkin carving party. We weren't able to make it last year for some reason (something about a 4-month old baby), and while we didn't have many illusions about Evan participating in the actual carving we knew he'd at least have fun with all the other kids. And we were right on both counts... not so interested in the pumpkins, but had a great time playing with new toys and kids he doesn't see that often.

Here he is taking a rest in a nice Adirondack chair:

Evan didn't want to help carve the pumpkins but he was curious about them:

Once the sun started going down someone broke out some glowsticks, or glowcrowns in Evan's eyes:

And here Steph shows off yet again her self portrait skills:

Penguin Costume

Steph thinks Evan's walk is somewhat akin to a penguin waddle, so when we saw a penguin costume in a catalogue there was really no question what he was going to be for Halloween:

Don't worry, there are more pictures to come of Evan showing penguins how to be truly cute.

Huh?

Evan loves his legos, and he often talks about building while he's playing with them (he'll run over to them and yell "Build build build" as soon as he sees the bag), but I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about in this video:

Your guess is as good as mine.

Kimmie Hat

When Steph's sister Kim and her boyfriend Bill were visiting last month they brought Evan a new hat, which will definitely come in handy when we visit them in New York next month.  With winter approaching (or as much of a winter as we have in Northern California) the mornings around here have been rather cool, so we've started having him wear his new hat on our dog walks to break it in.  He doesn't really like wearing hats very much, but he's awfully cute in them:

More Farm Park

Steph had been to the Emma Prusch Farm Park several times, including when she and Evan went a few months ago, but I had never been until this weekend when we all went for a visit.  Evan likes pretty much all animals, and he loved walking among all the birds around the duck pond and the stalls of sheep and pigs in the barn.  We also got to meet and pet an extremely friendly goat while one of the rangers was taking it on a walk (they're trying to "train" it to be a school assembly goat since it likes people so much), which was a kick (not literally).

Then when we were leaving the barn Evan caught sight of this feather on the ground, which was doing an American Beauty-style dance in the wind:

After chasing the feather around for a minute or two we played on the jungle gym for a while, then it was time to leave.  On the way out we came across a nice grassy hill, and its siren song was too much for Evan to resist (he absolutely loves to run downhill):

Like I said, he loves running downhill.

Wildlife Festival

We live pretty close to Alum Rock Park, which is home to a branch of the Youth Science Institute.  One of our neighbors told us the YSI was having their Wildlife Festival annual open house (Steph had noticed fliers around the neighborhood about it too), which sounded like something we all would enjoy so we piled into the car and headed up there.  As usual we didn't take any pictures of the festival itself, but the YSI web site has a link to a web gallery of photos if you're interested.  You can even see Steph and Evan (barely) in photo 193 -- proof that we attended!

We also went because we knew Alum Rock has some nice playgrounds that Evan had never been to (dogs aren't allowed in the park so we don't go often even though it's a very nice park and it's close).  As much as he enjoyed the wildlife festival I'm sure he'd tell you romping around at the playground was the highlight of the trip:


The pinnacle of any trip to a playground is some time on the swings, but they didn't have any baby swings (or maybe just not very many... I can't remember for sure) and Evan isn't quite ready for the regular swings yet.  He got to ride on the big-kid swings in Daddy's lap, though, which seemed to be even better:

Doggie, Meet Doga

While Steph's family was in town we went to the Build-A-Bear Workshop, presumably to build Evan a new teddy bear. We decided we already have plenty of teddy bears around the house, though, so we made him a teddy dog instead. A Peekay look-alike, in fact, which we named "Doga" (Evan says "dog" with a very hard "g"). This is the first time the dog and her doppelganger met:



Doga is excellent at following Evan's commands to "sit" and "stay" (yes, he already tries to give the dog commands), but we're having some trouble with "come".

Slider

We got Evan his own slide a few months ago, but he needed some major assistance to use it up to this point. Well, no more! He's now a fully-certified solo slider:

Breakfast with Daddy

Since Evan has started feeding himself at breakfast he hasn't been real interested in eating any other way. He usually is done before us, so we clean him up and let him out of his high chair to run around for a bit while we finish ourselves. In the last few days he's taken to playing for a few minutes and then climbing into my lap to have a little more daddy cereal, though:

Garden of Eden Again

A fortunate convergence of events (Jim & Sheilagh making the return leg of their summer trip through the Pacific Northwest and Kim & Bill attending a friend's wedding in San Francisco) brought all Steph's family into town to stay at our place this past weekend. We took the opportunity to revisit the scene of Goetsch family trips past (and Metz family trips recent as well) and go back to Garden of Eden for an afternoon.

I doubt Evan picked up on much when we talked up the trip to our nieces, but he sure seemed excited as we walked down to the water:

Actually, he just likes running downhill (I'll talk about this again in a future post I'm sure), but you could tell that the girls were excited.

Once we got there we did all the usual swimming hole things, like walking around in the water:

and playing in the sand:

I liked this picture because of the interesting solar flare effect, and it's a great one of Steph:

Children's Discovery Museum

We went to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose this weekend for the first time, and Evan had a blast. He liked the post office and streets exhibits, and the little kids section was certainly fun, but the best part were the trucks! First, right inside the front door there was a fire truck that immediately caught his attention:

Even better was the old farm truck upstairs:

We'll definitely be coming back... soon.

Hallie's Wedding

My sister Hallie was the last Metz kid to tie the knot, which she and her husband Mark did at Chouinard Winery in Pleasanton this weekend. Unfortunately, like with my sister Hilary's wedding we didn't take hardly any pictures of the event since we were both busy at the time. You'll have to take my word for it that it was a beautiful setting, and I think everyone had a wonderful time.

We didn't get any pictures, but I was able to shoot a little video during the reception:

Evan always likes a chance to dance, but I don't think he knew what to make of his mom dancing with someone else.

Rocking Horse

A neighbor passed along a rocking horse to us not that long after Evan was born, but he hasn't been big enough or had the balance to sit on it without major assistance. Up till now, that is:

Dance Fever

Evan likes to dance, and he has a fairly distinct style all his own:

It's some kind of combination of hippie spinning and stomping.

Sunglasses

Evan received a gift of a pair of sunglasses many months ago, but they were much too big at the time. He's a lot bigger now, though, and Steph recently was able to convince him to wear them for some pictures (the fact that they were too big wasn't the only reason he doesn't wear them):



Now if we could just get him to wear them when we're outside and they might do some good.

Eating Cereal

I referred to Evan's efforts to eat yogurt by himself a few weeks ago. He's also started eating his breakfast cereal by himself recently:

Klaus' Birthday

We went to Evan's friend Klaus' first birthday party today, which was a lot of fun. Klaus has a sand and water play table (sand on one side, water on the other) that all the kids greatly enjoyed turning into a wet sand play table. Evan seemed to think the sand needed some accent rocks so he embarked on a river rock relocation project, which I think the other kids appreciated (or at least they saw fit to play with the rocks once Evan moved them to the table). I didn't get any pictures of his work, but I did get this one of him taking a break to investigate the flowers along the way:

Garden of Eden

Evan really enjoys stomping through puddles and playing around in water in general. At the end of August we realized most of the summer had gone by without giving him a chance to do so anywhere except in the bath, which seemed like a shame. To rectify this we made plans with our friends Heberly and Nate and their kids to go to Garden of Eden (a swimming hole, or actually a series of swimming holes, on the San Lorenzo River just outside Santa Cruz) on my off Friday.

Heberly and Nate live in the Santa Cruz mountains, so we first went to their house for lunch before continuing on to the river. Unfortunately we hung out after lunch a little longer than we'd planned, so by the time we got to the swimming hole it was already well into the afternoon and the temperature was starting to cool off. We also went to a section of the river Steph and I had forgotten about that was better for swimming but not actually as good for toddler walking, so Evan didn't get to do as much splashing and frolicking as we'd envisioned. He still had a good time, though. Here he is with Steph at the water's edge:

All Done

Most sign language, like any language, is primarily a form of communication. In Evan's opinion sign language can also be a form of recreation, at least some signs. Here he is going a bit crazy with the "all dones":

Evan loves telling you he's all done!

Ice Cream Truck

I don't think Evan even knows what the ice cream truck is, but he certainly knows he's supposed to be excited by it:

Self Feeding

I've mentioned before that Evan has been getting closer and closer to feeding himself with his spoon. He made it through a cup of yogurt entirely on his own today:


Trust me, some of the yogurt did actually make it into his belly. I'm not sure who he was saying goodbye to in this video, but it does show Evan working the spoon like an old pro:

Emma Prusch Farm Park

Steph took Evan to the Emma Prusch Farm Park for the first time today and he had a great time, especially checking out the old tractors:

Portrait

Steph was photographing some artwork again today, so she also took a bunch more portrait photos of Evan:

Fairytale Town

While Steph's parents are in town we all went up to Sacramento for the day to visit her sister Megan. While we were there we went to Fairytale Town, which is a park with classic fairytale-themed play structures for kids -- the kind of place that you remember from your childhood but aren't completely sure if it was real or a dream. Of course, Evan doesn't know any of those fairytales yet so he didn't fully appreciate the shoe house (where the little old lady lives) or the huge Mother Goose, but he liked helping out in the Peter Rabbit garden (actually, I guess it's technically the Farmer MacGregor garden):


And he enjoyed all the animals:



He tried to share his favorite book with some of the goats but I don't think they appreciate trucks the same way he does:


Even though he didn't necessarily get the themes he still liked playing around on the play sets:

Hoarding Towelees

I've mentioned Evan's towelees (cloth diapers) before, which are his comfort item. He almost always has at least one towelee close at hand, but he'll happily take more if he can get them:



You can never have enough towelees.

Camping Practice

Steph's parents are back in town for a week or two before they start a camping road trip up the west coast and back. They used our front yard to lay out and organize all their gear, and Evan tried to lend a hand by making sure some of it worked correctly:

Drinking from a Cup

Evan is always interested in trying to do things like a big kid, like drinking from a regular cup (as opposed to his usual sippy-cup):


He did OK, getting a lot of the water in his mouth. I think he got a little more of it on his shirt, though:

Learning to Jump

Evan likes to bounce a lot, so Steph thought she'd give teaching him to jump a shot:

You can judge for yourself how successful they were.

Nothing in Particular

I don't remember what if anything is special about these pictures, but they're awfully cute: