Trick or Treating

As you know from previous posts, Evan was a bunny this year for Halloween.  Becoming a bunny doesn't just happen, though -- there is a process involved.  First, obviously, you have to put on the costume:

Then you need to add the whiskers and nose:

You've got to make sure for yourself it all looks right:

And finally, you've got to add the hat:

(My timing was a bit off with this shot, but Evan is either coming into or out of a smile, not a grimace.)

So that's Evan.  Alex was going to be a teddy bear (you may remember our teddy bear costume from Halloweens past), but it turns out he's not nearly big enough yet to fill out the costume.  Instead he went as a baby.  Here's the family part way through making the rounds at the neighbors' houses:

We thought we'd bring the dog along with us instead of leaving her home alone to bark at passing kids, but I think in retrospect that was a mistake.  She still barked at the passing kids, only this way she was even closer to them, and possibly more freaked out since she could see their fairy, princess, monster, and superhero costumes.  We'll figure out some better arrangement next year.

Anyway, here's one final shot of Steph and the boys decompressing after an evening of trick or treating for good measure:

Rabbit Training

Playing with trains while being a bunny... I'm not sure what's left in Evan's bucket list after that:

Bunny Costume

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Evan totally got on board with the bunny costume.  Here he is showing off some of the costume's finer points:

This video goes on a little longer than it really needed to, but I forgot to trim it before I took it off the camera and I'm too lazy to go back in after the fact and fix it.  Sorry about that, but if you listen at the end you can hear Evan singing quietly to himself, which is often what he does as he's falling asleep as I mentioned before.

Sink Bath

Alex's umbilical cord scab fell off pretty early (about two weeks ago, in fact), and at our last doctor appointment we got the OK to give him a full bath.  Trying to bathe an infant in a regular tub is one of the shortest routes to a backache available, and using our baby tub in the past has always seemed to be more work than it's worth (as we found out with Evan and reconfirmed last week), so we decided to just put the plug in one side of the kitchen sink and bathe him there.  I didn't get any pictures of the actual submersion but everything went pretty well... except for the fact that Alex hates being cold and/or wet and/or naked, so he pretty much screamed the whole time:

You probably won't remember, but we've got an extremely similar picture of Evan using the same towel, although it looks like there was less screaming involved then.

Speaking of Evan, he wanted to watch when he heard that we were giving Baby Alex a bath so we gave him a front row seat on the action:

Between Steph, Evan and Evan's chair there wasn't much room left at the counter for me to help, so I mainly played the roles of scrub nurse and archivist.

Book Club Costume Party

Steph's New Moms Book Club had an actual book club get together today, and since it is the day before Halloween they arranged to have the kids wear their Halloween costumes, and since the kids were wearing their Halloween costumes they invited dads to join in the fun, and since I'm still working only part time to help us transition to a 4-person household I was able to go.  Not being an actual member of the book club I didn't read the book, so I wasn't much of a contributor to their discussion.  That left me free to follow Evan around and take pictures of him doing normal kid-at-the-park things in his bunny costume:

I don't know that we've ever actually mentioned it on this blog, but Evan is crazy for bunnies.  They might be the only thing he likes more than trucks (might... he really likes trucks).  Amazingly enough, we couldn't find a bunny costume to buy in our brief looking around (almost any other animal you can imagine, but no bunnies), so Steph bought a pattern and my mom made the costume while she was staying with us.  We were afraid when push came to shove he might balk at wearing the whole outfit -- it's quite a struggle to get him to even wear a jacket, let alone a full body suit -- but he was a more than willing participant (which you'll see in more detail in a couple of posts).

Mom and Her Boys

Evan likes to hang around while Steph is feeding Alex so he can help if needed.  This usually involves getting things that are just out of reach, like a fresh burp cloth or a water bottle:

How did we manage to do this the first time without a gopher around to help?

Holding Alex

Evan wanted to hold Alex for the first time tonight, so we finally got the desired "big brother holding little brother" photo you've all been waiting for:

We also took a nice little picture of our family (or at least me, Steph, Evan, and Alex's pacifier):

On an almost entirely unrelated but cute note, before we took these pictures Evan asked to be swaddled in the teddy bear blanket (the brown blanket you can see under Evan's feet), and then he let me carry him around the house and burp him just like we do with Baby Alex.  We didn't get any pictures unfortunately, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned it since it was quite adorable.

Dr. Evil

Alex has been working on a Dr. Evil impersonation:

He's got a little too much hair, but otherwise I think it's pretty good.

Playing with Mom

Steph and Alex were making faces at each other on the couch today (Steph was actually doing most of the face making, but whatever) and we took a few pictures to capture the cuteness:

Reading to Himself

Whenever we put Evan in bed, either for the night or just for a nap, he doesn't go to sleep immediately.  He'll spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half talking to himself, singing, playing with the stuffed animals or cars we let him take to bed, whatever.  Most of the time after a while he'll drift off on his own, and since he stays in his room and is pretty quiet the whole time we're fine with this.  Sometimes at nap time when he's gone on for an hour or more we'll go in and tell him he needs to go to sleep, and after the inevitable meltdown (we think he gets his hopes up that his "nap" is over when he sees us come in, and pairing the realization that the exact opposite is happening with some parental chastisement, however slight, sends him into a brief tailspin) he does go to sleep.

Today was one of those days when Evan wasn't going to sleep during his nap time and he'd been talking to himself for over an hour.  As Steph was about to open his door and lay down the law she noticed he was reading one of his favorite books, Richard Scarry's Shapes and Opposites, to himself in bed.  So before she told him he needed to stop reading and get some sleep she took a little video:

Of course, Evan doesn't really know how to read yet.  He knows a little more than half of the alphabet (maybe closer to two thirds), but he doesn't know how letters go together to make words.  He is pretty good at memorizing books, though, as you can see.

Shaggy Fur Face

Evan goes on book jags where he wants to read the same book over and over again (as I imagine most little kids do).  Usually the book becomes a little bit tiresome after a day or two (to us at least -- Evan seems to take a week or more to wear his interest out), but it's still cute.  His current obsession, Shaggy Fur Face, is worse than most, though.  It's a kinda awful story for a two year old (this dog is abused by pretty much everyone he meets, gets into gambling, is kidnapped for years, etc.), and it's pretty long and wordy, but Evan loves the pictures and wants to read it at every chance he gets.  So we make up a story that mostly goes along with the pictures but tones down the tale of woe and omits some of the darkest stuff.  Hopefully he'll move on to something else soon.

Anyway, here are Steph and Jim making up today's version of Shaggy Fur Face:

Grandparents

After a trip through the Pacific Northwest to see some relatives Steph's parents stayed with us for a few more days on their way back down to San Diego.  They both took their turns keeping Alex occupied to give Steph and I a break, either awake:

or asleep:

Pumpkin Shirt

One of our friends at the park got Evan this pumpkin shirt for Halloween.  It has appeared in a few other posts a couple of days ago, but he likes it so much (it's his short sleeve shirt du jour) I thought it should stand on its own as well:

The BabyBjörn is Back

Evan and Alex and I went on our first one-parent walk to the perc ponds this morning.  Steph has taken the boys on dog walks around the neighborhood already but the ground at the perc ponds is too rough for our normal stroller, which meant I'd have to put Alex in a carrier.  Since I'm not the biggest fan of the Ergo that meant it was time to dust off the trusty 'ol BabyBjörn:

I imagine Alex will get lots of time in the Björn over the next few months, just like his brother before him.  Hopefully he'll also learn to fall asleep in it like Evan did (the results today were mixed).

That's Entertainment

After the tree trimming was done Steph's friend Penny came by with her son Zach to hang out for a bit and bring us some food (we're always happy to let anyone who wants to come see the baby and bring food do so).  It wasn't entirely a one-way street, though... Evan did his best to entertain our visitors, which Zach really seemed to appreciate:

Building Nests

We had some tree people come to the house today to remove a few trees we've been talking about getting rid of since we moved in 3 years ago (West Valley Arborists, in case you're interested, who we would definitely recommend if you're in this area and need your trees taken care of) and to give some TLC to a few other trees we've fallen behind on the maintenance of (wonder why?).  Evan was a little taken aback by the noise (we had a juniper "bush" that was as tall as the house removed from right outside our front window) and I didn't want to play outside and get in the way so we decided to build nests in the house.

First we built a nest on Mom & Dad's bed (since Steph was back in our room feeding Alex and Evan wanted to "help"):

Then a bit later we built one on the couch so we could watch the end of the juniper extraction:

While Evan was in the bed nest he thought he'd really embrace the role of the little birdie:

Oh, and in case you're interested, here's one before-and-after shot of the front of the house where you can see the juniper and two ferns gone (with the part of the house behind no longer deep in shadow) and the magnolia significantly more open:

Nap

We took Alex to the doctor for his 3-week checkup this morning and then went to get haircuts afterward, and for whatever reason Evan was just exhausted after lunch.  So much so that he fell asleep on the couch and took his nap out there:

I guess being a big brother can be a tiring gig.

Perc Ponds

Alex made his first trip today to the percolation ponds that are the destination of many of our morning dog walks:

Not that you can really tell from that picture, so here's one showing at least a little bit of baby:

Unfortunately as soon as we got there he started getting fussy and making noises like he was going to want to eat so we high-tailed it back home without doing our normal lap.  Baby steps....

Validation

Just like his brother before him, Alex received his official validation of existence in the mail today:

Between getting his social security card and his own health insurance card he's really starting to make his mark on the world.

Pumpkin Patch

One of our friends from Steph's mom's book club organized a group get together to the pumpkin patch at Uesugi Farms this weekend, so we bundled the whole family plus grandparents (my dad came out for the weekend to meet Alex and fly home with my mom) into two cars (yup, with two car seats there's not really room in the Outback for one extra adult, let alone two) and headed down to Morgan Hill for the day.

Once we got there (which took longer than it really needed to owing to a disagreement between me and the GPS) the first thing we had to do was ride the train:

Grandma consented to skip the train ride to watch Alex sleep in his stroller, and to take pictures.  Fortunately the train wasn't very long so she hardly had to wait for our return but it was adequate to quiet Evan's demands for a tractor ride (he really wanted to take a tractor ride, but I'm not sure that the hay ride they offered would have been any closer to what he was thinking of than the train).  We spent the rest of the time before lunch looking around at the pumpkins (it is, after all, a pumpkin patch):

Evan got to choose his own pumpkin, as well as a pumpkin for his brother.  He immediately gravitated to this one with the broken stem and wouldn't be dissuaded from his choice (not that we tried that hard since it was an otherwise exemplary pumpkin).  I couldn't decide which of these pictures I liked better, the not-quite-posed:

or the mistimed smile:

so I decided to include both of them.

After choosing pumpkins we met the group in the snack shack/picnic area for lunch, where we were serenaded by a mariachi band that Evan thought was wonderful:

He was doing this for close to half an hour in a corn dog-fueled haze, but that was the best video I got.

Ear Grabber

Steph wanted to make sure we got a shot of Alex hanging on to his ear as he slept today:

Farm Park

We've been telling Evan we would be going to the Emma Prusch Farm Park the whole time my mom has been visiting, so this afternoon (after 3 weeks of buildup) we finally followed through.  Unfortunately both the small animal section and livestock barn were closed when we got there, the former because the rangers were feeding the animals and the latter because it was after 4 o'clock.  There were still a lot of roosters, hens, and peacocks walking around the grounds, though, and it seems Evan is a little afraid of roosters:

Whenever a rooster got within 20 or 30 feet of us Evan became very cautious and trying to look at them from between my legs.  I know the last time Steph took him there some roosters and geese were very assertive in requesting they be allowed to share Evan's lunch, so maybe that's the reason.

Here are Evan and my mom looking at the turkey pen, particularly the two big white turkeys on top of the pen:

Since we couldn't see a lot of the animals close up we spent most of our time in the playground.  Being there late in the afternoon on a Wednesday on a marginal weather day worked out great since there were other kids there but not so many that the play structure was inundated (which happens sometime on the weekend).  As it was Evan got plenty of time to swing on a big kid swing all by himself (he's just started doing this in the last few weeks):

He spent close to an hour running around on the cool play structure, working out a loop that sent him through the translucent tube:

across and up the entire structure to the 450° spiral slide:

followed by a not-exactly-direct run around the wood chips back to where he'd started to repeat the loop.  You may notice he's not exactly pointing straight down the slide in this picture.  He decided to try wedging his feet against the outside this time down, which had the effect of spinning him around half way down so he ended up at the bottom head first on his stomach.  He was never able to repeat that move again, so I guess I'm lucky I caught at least a bit of it on camera.

Also, since it wasn't very busy he could take his time working on the little climbing wall with Grandma's help, and he was quite pleased with himself when he made it to the top:

Self Portrait

Evan always likes to look at the camera when we get it out, but usually he doesn't need to press the buttons.  Today was different, though, as we felt compelled to take a self portrait:

and a closeup shot of Daddy from his perspective:

Dog Walk

Steph got back to her dog walking routine for the first time tonight:

This was also Alex's first introduction to the dog walk (if you click on the photo to enlarge it you'll see that he is indeed buried somewhere in the stroller) -- we like to get them started young.

Low Rider

My mom took Evan shopping yesterday, and in addition to getting him a bunch of new clothes (namely long-sleeved striped shirts since he's grown out of most of his fall clothes from last year and he's on a big stripes kick recently) they brought home a musical card that plays the song "Low Rider".  As you can tell, he's a fan:

Being Helpful

Evan really likes to be helpful, especially when it comes to Baby Alex:

Does Alex really want his pacifier?  It's hard to tell in this picture, but as far as Evan is concerned that's not really an important question.

Superbaby

Evidently if you extend an infant's left arm up as you burp them it's supposed to help them get the gas out (something about where the esophagus runs inside your chest cavity I think?).  So if one arm up is good two arms up is probably better, right?

How Does That Work?

I don't really understand how this doesn't cause permenant damage:

We've got similar pictures of Evan when he was this young, but it didn't seem right then and it doesn't seem right now.

Children's Discovery Museum

After taking Alex to the pediatrician for the first time we also took him on his first trip (of what will certainly be many) to the Children's Discovery Museum:

Of course, Evan got more out of than his little brother.  He got to climb around on the ambulance:

He got to play at the sand table (the pictures we took there were not very good, unfortunately), and he got to paint:

This video is a little long and slow, but it shows some interesting developmental tidbits: