OK – so in 2004, a blog was one of the better (and easier) ways of regularly sharing posts and pictures. Back then, Facebook was still just getting started and was limited to a few college campuses. My how things have changed. One has to admit, though, that the last five years has brought on a completely new way of communications, one where information finds the audience, rather than the audience searching for the information. While the format of blogs definitely still has its place, there are now better, faster, and easier ways to accomplish our goal of keeping everyone updated on happenings with our family.
Thanks for visiting the our little corner of the web… continue to follow our journey:
Apparently Andrew is not quite over the holidays yet. He made this holiday card this weekend… (yes, that’s a purple star on top of the tree – his way of saying he wants one for next year…)
Translation:
The card shows Andrew’s Christmas Party, with a tree, flying ornaments, gifts, and Andrew, Dada, and Mama opening a present. It’s signed “Ducky and Dog!”
Andrew’s fascination with letters continues. We found one of his doodle pads laying around the house this afternoon. If you can’t read his bubble letters, they say (from left to right, top to bottom): Andrew, Jakob, Michael, Andrew, Mama, Dada, Mama. (There’s also a non-bubble letter mama that’s crossed out).
We spoke with some of his teachers at daycare this week, and they said that boys don’t usually start drawing bubble letters until the second or third grade. We are constantly being surprised by how fast he’s learning… (but strangely, he’s not all that interested in numbers or math…)
After more than a year of thinking about it, we’ve finally made the shift from Blogger to WordPress. For now, the blog is using a template that maintains consistency with the look-and-feel of the Blogger site. However, this change will give us a lot more control over the blog, and hopefully lead to bigger and better things to come. Already, a search functionality and improved archive navigation has been implemented. Enjoy!
For the seventh year running, we spent New Year’s eve in downtown Denver. It’s become quite a mini-tradition. This year, we decided to try the new Sheraton hotel in Denver (formerly the Adam’s Mark) instead of the Westin. Word to the wise… stick to the Westin. The only advantage of the Sheraton was that the fireworks were being shot off from its roof, so it was a good show. This was one of the warmest new year’s eves we’ve had, and we were able to catch the 9pm show outside. We were so close to the action that as the shells exploded, we got rained on by bits of paper used to wrap fireworks. It wasn’t fun to have that stuff rain down and getting in your eyes! Andrew had a blast, though – he really like the loud booms!
We stayed in the room for the midnight show, and got this image from the window.
You’ll notice that he got two books from mom and dad… a Tag reader (Kung Fu Panda) and My First Dictionary. You might think it’s strange that a three year old would like a dictionary, but in fact he’s fascinated with the words. His favorite activity is to sit down and read through the words and meanings. Even though he can’t read everything by himself yet, he’s actually gotten quite good at sounding out most of the words!
He also got a cool RC car from uncle Arnold and aunt Peggy, and a board game called Blokus that we got at daddy’s company holiday party gift exchange. He also got a new (to him) computer, replacing the ancient PIII 500 that was in his room… that one was so slow it didn’t run most of the kids sites anymore.
Andrew: “The anticipation is killing me… What is it? What is it?
We had Christmas dinner with the Chungs this year. It’s fun to see that every year, there are more kids!
The kids have to be taken care of before the adults think about eating.
Andrew is not afraid to stuff his face.
After dinner, there’s nothing better than an ice cream cone!
By the way… the book Andrew is looking at is Thomas the Train. For some reason, he has developed a fear of Thomas. Whenever a TV show with Thomas comes on, Andrew breaks down and cries – asking to turn the TV off. He says it’s too scary. It explains the look he has on his face.
Recently, Andrew has been wanting to do everything by himself, from turning off the lights, to serving his own food, and climbing into the car seat. When he wants to do something, he’ll say “I want to be the helper!” He makes his point clear with the above Play-doh creation.
On a side note, he is really interested in letters and words. His new passion is cutting them out of paper. There are scraps of paper everywhere around the house, but you can’t really get mad at him because he’s so cute. He’s almost learned to cut all 26 letters out of paper (including the little triangle from the middle of the A and the holes from letters like B and D), and he uses those letters to spell words. He’s also typing on the computer keyboard, and learning to read. We’ve been told by the teachers at daycare that he’s doing pretty well with words – not sure how best to proceed from here, but suffice to say that we hope he continues to learn and not lose interest!
Each year, Andrew’s daycare holds a holiday celebration. No, it’s not called a Christmas celebration, but there are trees, reindeer headbands, and songs about Santa. Go figure.
The show started earlier than usual this year, and unfortunately, neither of us made it to see Andrew’s performance. We were told that he stole the show… meaning he sang really loud and acted like a little showoff…
We got this photo from one of the parents there. Note the showoff nature of Andrew’s moves.
Around here, Christmas was always one of those holidays for sleeping in and overeating. We’ve never had much of a celebration, and certainly never bothered to put up a Christmas tree. But, with a little one, it’s a little bit harder to ignore the both the traditions and the consumerism. Last year, Andrew was young enough not to know the difference – he thought opening presents was all about tearing the wrapping paper. This year, though, he started telling us in October “I want a kwithmus tree.” We gave in and got one. I have to say, though, that it did brighten up the house a lot! The trouble with getting a tree is that now we have one more big box to stash around the house. However, the tree made Andrew very happy, so it’s all worth it.
The only thing though… after we put the tree up, he demanded to know why we didn’t have a star on top of the tree and he told his mom that we need a tree skirt. What are they teaching him at school?
We snuck the tree in to the house and put it together before he saw it. It saved us from answering the questions about why our tree was in three pieces, at least until we have to take it down.
Andrew helped to decorate it with ornaments. As a result, we had a lot of ornaments hung at the bottom of the tree.
It explains the look he has on his face.
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