Thomas Wall Art

Thomas was nice enough to paint a few pictures for our hallway.  A few frames from Ikea and a 21 month old with paint and voila two unique pictures to decorate our house. 

New Style

Along with Thomas’ new found independence he has also found  his own style.  He has 3 shirts with “Ha-tee” (hockey) pictures and those are requested when available.

Another big hit are his train PJs that he got from his Great Grandma Gen. If we are able to convince him into a different pajama set he will still request trains to wear the next day. As you can see in this picture he has the PJs he wore to bed on under the beloved train jammies.  Mike and I also think that he looks pretty cute!

Tonight when I was putting away his clothes, he picked out the following outfit.  A flannel shirt, t-shirt to go over that, his Carhartt pants and a tie!  Such fashion sense!

Lastly, he has been very into the difference between “Mama” and “Dada” stuff.  He will walk around the house and point out the things that are either mine or Mike’s.  It can vary from our shoes and clothes to our water glass and toiletries.  The best is his new love for wearing one of each of our shoes…he thinks he is pretty funny when he walks around the house like this!

New Years Eve

We celebrated the end of 2011 and the  beginning of 2012 with a great dinner at home and a sparkling grape juice toast in front of the tree.  We also set up the camera to take pictures 10 in a row and have some pretty cute, funny and nice family pictures to remember this year!   Anyone care that it was at 8 p.m. Pacific Time then Thomas went to bed and it was time for Mike and I to celebrate.  

This is my favorite picture, while Mike and I were stealing a kiss, Thomas was celebrating himself!

Our celebration consisted of making a giant pot of chicken stock and watching episodes of Dexter!  We did turn on the delayed broadcast of New York’s celebration and then shared a kiss with our first born, Stella, who was snuggling in between us, as the fireworks were making her nervous!

Mike started off 2012 by running 13 miles and making Thomas and I breakfast when he returned.  We then spent the day working on our house and with a trip to our home away from home, Home Depot!

December Recap

December has came and went in the blink of an eye for the “Seattle Laschens.”   I am going to try to update the blog as much as possible and hope to make blogging appearances more regular in 2012!

Make sure to keep scrolling down past some of the “old” posts just in case I am blogging out of order.  I keep the dates chronologically so that we can look back and see exactly when things happened!

You can look forward to the following blog posts coming shortly:

~Katie (Mike’s sister) and Don’s wedding

~Playdate with the Erdall Family

~Recap from our week in Woodbury with the Laschen’s

~ Macy’s Santa Land with Nana Laschen and Auntie Mo

~Hollidazzle Parade

~Play time in the snow with Daddy

~Recap from week in Cloquet with the McConachie’s

~Thomas’ first time sledding and building a snowman

~Troy and Molly’s Wedding

~Christmas Eve and Christmas Celebrations

~Thomas’ first time Skating and Skiing

~Finding out we are having a baby GIRL

~Family trip to the zoo

~New Year’s Eve

and finally maybe we will update on some of the house stuff we have gotten done!  Just making this list makes me feel like the blog is going to take forever to get caught up, so I better start writing!

Skiing

Santa brought Thomas a pair of skis and we were all eager to get him up to the mountains.  After a hour drive East we were at Summit at Snoqualmie and there was snow and lots of it!  Thomas loves “(s) now” and so does Stella!  They both had a blast playing in the snow, and Thomas loved skiing!  In fact when it was over, there were a few tears at the bottom of the hill.

It was a little hard for me to contain my itch to ski once there.  I don’t know of the three of us who was having the most fun.   What a great day as a family.

Trip to See the Hippos

Thomas wanted to take a trip to the zoo to see the hippos.  Since watching Madagascar he has really been obsessed with “hippo(s).”

We met Whitney and Dahlia at the zoo and then grabbed lunch with them after. 

First Time Skating

Santa’s little helpers, Grandma and Grandpa Laschen, got Thomas his first set of hockey skates for Christmas.  Both Mike and I were eager to see how he reacted to his first time skating.

He was not sure of the skate until Mike got his on and then he was all about them.  On the ice he started off in Mike’s arms and liked going fast!  Not going to lie, without a helmet and full body suit of padding I was a bit nervous!

Then it was time to put him down and see what he thought on the ice.  Hard to know what he thought was the best about this adventure but he sure loved skating and playing “ha ta” as he calls it. 

After skating we went and got warm chocolates and headed home.  Thomas and Mike came back and watched a hockey game and then went downstairs to play more hockey.  I don’t know if I am ready to have a full hockey house!  But must admit I too was pretty proud of our little guy and how well he did for his first time on skates, so if being a hockey mom is in my future I am up for it!

Shaving with Daddy

Thomas really wants to be just like his Daddy.  He liked watching Mike shave and thought he would like to do so as well, until the foam brush went to his cheek.  He immediately said “all done” and the shaving party was over!  Some day…a long ways away…he may need to shave!

Christmas

Christmas morning we woke up and it was time to show Thomas the toys.  Apparently the Grinch was trying to steal our little boy and he had quite a hard time getting out of bed.  After slowly waking up and a little coaxing it was go time! 

He ran into the living room and right over to his BBQ set from his Auntie Katie and Uncle Don.  Then he checked out the other presents before it was time to open our stockings.  After Stella opened her stocking, we helped Thomas open his.  It was then we realized that present opening was going to take awhile.  Every toy he opened he had to try out first before moving onto the next toy.  It was such a fun morning opening toys and in toy chaos.  After we opened presents we made a big brunch ate, played and then all took a nap!

Although this wasn’t Thomas’ first Christmas last year he had no clue what was happening.  This year he was pretty excited as we had been reading and talking about Santa.  He also enjoyed retelling the story about how Santa would come down the chimney.   At times we thought he might be getting overwhelmed with all the toys, but he sure seemed to be enjoying himself.  One of the catches of present opening was that after I borrowed his knife to help open a present, he then needed to open the rest of them with it.   Let’s just say it was not a speedy gift opening!  We hope everyone had a wonderful time celebrating the true meaning of Christmas, we know we did.

Christmas Eve

This was the first year that either Mike or I had been away from our families and were just “together with our family.”   It was bittersweet knowing that everyone was together celebrating, but it was also very fun to start our own family traditions.

Christmas Eve we welcomed Max and Amy over for some pizza and beverages.  They were also nice enough to say and play Santa’s helpers putting together a few of Thomas’ new toys!

After dinner we had to get the cookies that we had made earlier in the day ready for Santa.  Then I helped Thomas write his letter to Santa, which lasted about 30 seconds and was a single sentence.  After leaving out the milk and cookies, Thomas got to pick one present and open it.  After playing with his truck for a bit it was time for Thomas to go to bed and us to get to work.  A couple things we missed that we will do next year for sure were attending Christmas Eve Mass and reading Twas’ the night before Christmas.