Kickin' It

Alex really likes to kick his legs.  So much so that we made up a little song:

Alex is kickin' kickin' kickin'
Like a chicken chicken chicken
Bawk a bawk a bawk a bawk a bawk

Pretty good lyrics, huh? You should hear the tune!

Anyway, since he likes kicking so much Evan's old Kickee Bear is the perfect toy for him:

Drawing Cars

Evan got a new Cars drawing tablet from our friend Loren at our post-Thanksgiving brunch, which he absolutely loves.  And what does he spend most of his time drawing on his new tablet?  Cars of course:

Brunch at Penny's

The day after returning from Newport Beach we went over to our friend Penny's for a post-Thanksgiving brunch. Since there were plenty of other hands about we thought we might be able to pose ourselves for a suitable Christmas card picture, but the stars did not align themselves. We did get a passable family portrait for posting here, though:

We also took some pictures of the next generation of boys which turned out pretty well (given the difficulties of getting three boys under the age of 2½ to sit still).  To Evan's right are first Penny and David's son Zach and then Shannon and Lindel's son Justin:

Cheerleading Practice

Not that we really want Alex to become a cheerleader, but if that's what he chooses to do he's got a head start in his training:

Burrito Boy

One repercussion of having a little baby around is that Evan every so often wants to be treated like a baby himself.  This usually involves swaddling him in a soft blanket (or wrapping him up like a burrito -- the act is the same, the terminology just depends on the context), carrying him around the room, and sometimes burping him:

Evan thinks it's hilarious, but carrying a 30+ lbs. "baby" is not the same as carrying an actual baby.  I think my arms are still recovering.

Thanksgiving Day

So as you know, the whole point of our trip down to Newport Beach was to be there for Thanksgiving.  Steph's aunt and uncle and their kids (and their kids' kids) who live around L.A. all came to Melissa's for the day so there was quite a crowd (it ended up being more people than attended the Metz family festivities back in Columbus).  Instead of trying to setup folding tables and such inside Melis arranged for us to sit on the back patio, and fortunately the weather cooperated with a beautiful 80° sunny day:

Never a slave to the weather, Evan insisted on wearing the new race car sweatshirt Aunt Lisa and Uncle Bob gave him despite the fact that it put him at risk for heat stroke:

As you can see from the makeup of the kids' table, Evan had his work cut out for him representing his gender this day.  In a year or two Alex will be able to lend a hand, but they're still going to be sorely outnumbered for the foreseeable future:

I don't think any of these other pictures actually occurred on Thanksgiving day, but I don't really have a better place to put them and I wanted to include them somewhere since they're all good pictures (or in one case, significant to me).

First, here are Steph and Alex hanging out with all three girls the day after we arrived:

This picture of almost all of us (Megan chose to steal some time to herself) walking down to the beach is not that great of a picture, but its significance is monumental.  Never before has a moment of community exercise occurred at a Goetsch family get-together since I've been going to these things (which is about 10 years now)!  Sheilagh even took off running at one point!!  I almost passed out from the shock.  I have no explanation for this radical turn of events.  None whatsoever.

Last, here are a couple cute pictures of Alex, first sitting with his Grandpa Jim:

and then enjoying his bouncy chair:

Chuck E. Cheese's

We were planning on going down to San Diego while we were down south and stopping by Legoland along the way.  When we realized how much it was going to cost (over $600 just to get in if we all went!) and balanced that against how much of the park Evan was going to be too small to enjoy we decided to abort that plan and instead go to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch.

Evan was a little unsure of several of the louder and flashier games, but he did have a good time riding in a patriotic car with Delaney:

watching Mommy play a horse riding game:

and marveling at the magic that is Chuck himself:

Watching Chuck perform inspired Evan to run, although I'm not entirely sure if he was running towards the stage or away from it... you be the judge:

The Pillow Series

We took a whole series of photos of Alex smiling at everyone while he was lying in someone's lap (can't remember who):

Dad Came Too

I basically included this picture just to prove I went on this trip too:

Puppy Towel

Just because you go on vacation is no reason to take a bath without your puppy towel:

Soap Beard

For reasons I can't explain, Evan seems to like the taste of soap.  He doesn't exactly eat soap directly, but he certainly doesn't mind sucking on a soapy washcloth, or washing his face vigorously for five minutes with a bar of soap:

The white stuff on his face is not the typical bubble bath beard (although he does love a bubble beard), it's smeared on soap.  Go figure....

Babe Magnet, Part II

As promised, here are the pictures of Alex with his aunties.  First with Melissa:

then Kim:

and with Megan:

This last picture warrants a little explanation.  Kim flew into San Diego to stay with Jim and Sheilagh and see a few college friends before they all drove up to join us in Newport Beach.  The first day there she volunteered to let Alex fall asleep on her while she took a nap, which he was happy to do (like many babies, he always sleeps better if someone is holding him).  She thought sleeping with a warm little baby was so nice that she then upped the ante and volunteered to let him snooze with her overnight, despite our warnings of the probable fussiness in the middle of the night and the inevitable crink in the neck in the morning.

Somehow, though, there was no fussiness in the middle of the night, and Alex slept for over six hours straight (his longest stretch yet)!  In honor of this achievement I've included a picture of the initial nap with Aunt Kim:

Of course, that's not really the end of the story.  Kimmie was not able to duplicate her initial resounding success, and each successive night was worse than the last.  By the end of the week I think she may have regretted the decision to volunteer in the first place, although to her credit she stuck with it.  And Steph and I certainly didn't mind the minimally-interrupted sleep. ;-)

Babe Magnet, Part I

As you might imagine, Alex was quite a hit with the ladies during our Thanksgiving trip.  I took a bunch of pictures of his cousins and aunties holding him, and here are some of the ones with his cousins I liked the best (auntie pictures to follow in their own post)....

Sitting with his cousins Delaney and Riley:

With Paige:

Posing in his bouncy chair with Delaney:

and then with Riley:

Lying down with (on) Delaney:

Paige helping to calm Alex down before a nap:

This isn't really the best picture ever, but it's very Riley:

And finally, if you look closely you can see Alex is giving the A-Ok sign as he naps on Delaney:

Piano

Since our last visit Melissa acquired a piano from someone in her neighborhood, and the girls were very eager to show off their self-taught piano skills at every chance.  Evan has no such skills, but he enjoyed "playing piano" just as much as everyone else:

Silly Boy, Dance!

As you know, Evan loves to dance, and he and his cousins certainly had fun dancing together:

Sharing Snacks

Evan enjoyed the trampoline well enough on our last trip down south, but he thought it was the best thing ever this time around.  He even tried talking us into letting him eat on it a few times.  I think an actual meal would be a bit much, but sharing snacks with his cousin Riley while taking a short break from jumping was fine:

Purple Chair

We decided almost as soon as we found out Steph was pregnant that we weren't going to attempt a cross-country flight to cold weather with a 2½ year old and a 1½ month old, so for the first time in my or Evan's life we didn't go to Detroit or Columbus for Thanksgiving.  Instead we made arrangements to spend the week with Steph's side of the family for the first time, so we bundled ourselves into two cars (Steph's sister Megan drove with us, and since we can't fit 3 adults in our car with the 2 car seats we caravaned instead) and drove down to Newport Beach.

There will be no shortage of posts from this week (14 in total!), and I'll start with several pictures of the boys together on their cousin's super-soft chair (gotta start somewhere).  Steph and I take over our niece Delaney's room when we stay there (D is always very accomodating of us), and this plush purple chair seemed to score highly with both Evan and Alex.  So in no particular order and of no special significance:

Smiling

Alex is getting a lot better at smiling recently:

Smiling is a critical skill for a baby, as it makes the caregivers much more likely to actually like the baby, thereby incentivizing them to continue giving that care.  As Steph likes to point out, sleep deprivation is a form of torture (or I guess we call that "an enhanced interrogation technique" nowadays), and why would you willingly take care of your tormentor?  Because he smiles at you, that's why.

And no, he's not wearing a cape, that's just a bib that got spun around.  He hasn't learned to fly or leap tall buildings in a single bound yet, just smile.

Closeups

These aren't the absolute greatest pictures of Alex you'll ever see (I had to lighten them up a bit, and that made them a bit grainy... or a digitally-created equivalent of grainy), but they're still cute:

Callie Kitty

Our neighbor Lisa couldn't wait until Christmas arrives to give Evan his present -- his own Callie Kitty! The original Callie Kitty is Lisa's cat, who is possibly the friendliest cat that has ever walked the earth. All the neighborhood kids love her and Evan, who is prone to like all animals anyway, is no exception. Because Evan is so enamored of Callie (the fact that she doesn't run away from him and willfully accedes to his petting demands is probably a significant factor here) Lisa got him a stuffed animal that is the spitting image of the original, and he was dutifully impressed.

Alex doesn't really appreciate the magic of Callie Kitty yet, but Evan is doing his best to educate him:

New Shirt

I've mentioned before that Evan has been wearing out some of his favorite clothes recently.  We've got plenty of future pairs of jeans that are still a little too big for him but we're dangerously short of currently-wearable pairs that don't have significant structural breaches, so we went shopping today for some cheap, wear-now jeans to tide us over until we can dip into our strategic jeans reserve in a few months.

Getting new jeans was nice and all, but as far as Evan was concerned the coup of the trip was his new Cars t-shirt (although his also wearing some new jeans and socks):

Maximizing Your Laundary Contribution

Since Alex was born we've been doing considerably more laundry than we were before, which is no big surprise. You might think that since a baby's clothes are so small they wouldn't cause that much of an uptick in the laundry level, but experience suggests you'd be wrong:

Last night Alex took his laundry contribution to the next level. First, he did some projectile vomiting after feeding twice in a row. Second, he figured out that the key to laundry volume is not the quantity of the mess you produce or even the number of the articles you spread that mess over but the size of those articles. High value targets like bedding, especially the comforter, are your quickest route to the next load. Now if we could just figure out why Alex thinks this is a worthwhile pursuit maybe we could do something about it.

More Sink Bathing

Time for another bath in the kitchen sink, which means another chance for cute pictures:

This time Evan got to play in the water on the other half of the sink instead of just watch fro a short distance.  I still don't think he's ready to help with the actual bathing of an infant, but he's getting closer.

Bunny and Bunny and Bunny

So you know that Evan loves his bunny Halloween costume, so much so that he wanted to wear it again today.  You can see why Steph thought a rabbit costume might be the way to go this year:

Excessive Sharing

Evan is very good about sharing his toys... sometimes too good:

I'm pretty sure Alex hadn't volunteered to be a garage today.  Fortunately Evan is also pretty good about putting his toys away when you ask him to:

Want to Have More Milk... to Drink... in the Mouth

At breakfast this morning Evan drank all his milk part way through so he asked for more.  This in itself wasn't novel or interesting -- it happens every morning.  The exchange between he and I was a bit novel, though:

Evan: "Want to have more milk?"
Dad: "Want to have more milk, what?"
Evan: "Want to have more milk to drink?"
Dad: "Want to have more milk to drink, what?"
Evan: "Want to have more milk to drink in the mouth?"
Dad: "No, how do you ask nicely?"
Evan: "Want to have more milk, please?"

Brothers

Alex was hanging out with Steph on the couch again today (she mostly feeds Alex out on the couch so there are lots of opportunities for "baby in lap" pictures) when Evan came over to join in the fun:

A few minutes later Evan was showing Alex his Baby Brother Bunny, which he was very interested in:

Here's what he was looking at:

Soon enough Alex got the closer look I think he'd been wanting: