Monday, December 5, 2016

Happy Day!

So Atticus turned 2 this weekend.  What a fun month it has been!

Earlier in November (the 14th, to be exact), our little man got his first professional haircut.  Wow, did he look older.   Bye bye, curls!  Hello Handsome!


And yes, for the record, he was completely quiet and straight-faced the entire time.  It was awesome (and very surprising!)


We also celebrated Thanksgiving.  It was pretty different for us this year as we were away from family.  Thank heavens for good friends!  We had a great time with the Whitaker clan.  Atticus especially loved the time with his bestie, Bow.


Another huge milestone for us is counting!  Atticus surprised me one morning, without any coaching or practice:



But we need to get to the biggest milestone of the past month- the birthday!

No kidding, right before his friends were supposed to arrive, Atticus went through a coming of age ritual that I was not in the least expecting.  But what a manly unibrow, right?
 While we were a little frustrated (we couldn't get it all off as you'll see in the birthday photos) it was pretty darn funny.

We still managed to have a great time!  Here are some highlights from his birthday party:






I wasn't quite sure how much Atticus enjoyed his birthday, but he made it clear that he had loved it the next morning.  He kept saying, "Happy Day, song, a-peees" (translation, "Sing the birthday song, please!" and then blowing.  So we sang it a few more times and practiced blowing out candles.  He should do much better next year.  :)

I just love how he says, "Happy Day."  Here he is saying it back when we were trying to send a birthday message to Bobba in October:

Here are a few final memories for Atticus while still a 1-year-old:
 Dane's dad came down at the beginning of the month.  Hooray!  Unfortunately, due to a computer malfunction, we've lost a few of the photos, but we had a wonderful time.  We even got to celebrate his birthday with pie.  We just love Bobba!!!


Birds at a nearby park are a little more comfortable with humans than I would like.  I really did have to pick up Atticus and run shortly after taking these!



Eating cheerios out of his tractor at church
We finally caught his awesome sound for chickens (and all birds, for that matter).
Only 20 more days until Christmas!


Thursday, November 3, 2016

Goodbyes and Hellos

This month our family has gone through a lot of changes.

After being away for three pretty difficult months, Dane came home!  Hooray!  Ha, and then, in less than 72 hours, we were on the road headed to our new home.  We pulled the band-aid off slowly on that one.

Before leaving the state, we tried to get in as much quality time with family as we could.

We went on one last (awesome!) hike to see the colored leaves with Mimi (my mom):


We even got to see a bunch of tractors after our hike.  Atticus was spellbound.

We saw the amazing Light of the World display at Thanksgiving Point.  (If you haven't seen it yet, please go!  It really is a must see.)
 

 The one (only?) cool thing with saying all these goodbyes is that Atticus has gotten better at snuggling.  It was just in time!


Of course, we had to say goodbye to Atticus's favorite neighbor, Norah.  She even wrote Atticus a card and fixed him some snacks for the road!
Our final goodbyes involved taking a little early morning drive with Nana and Bobba.  That's Atticus's style!  Then we were off.


Thankfully, the trip went quickly and Atticus had a new friend several hours later when he met my childhood best friend's little boy, Bowman.
 You have to understand.  Bowman's mom, McKay and I, were like sisters growing up in the South.  Here's some proof that she showed me while we were staying with her.  I have a whole lot more evidence if needed, but it's in storage...
So we're pretty thrilled that our boys are already two peas in a pod!





Moving into our house turned out to be no easy matter.  After having stayed with Dane's family for a little less than a week, the closing was delayed again and again.  We went from one location for four days to another for a week to yet another for four more days.

Thank goodness, we finally did close- on Halloween Day, no less.  We were were exhausted and poor Atticus was more than a little disoriented by then.  Still, we did our darndest to celebrate the holiday.

Atticus entered a Halloween contest.  Not bad, if you ask me!


Before we left Utah, we went to Cornbelly's:



We went to a pretty awesome vegetable farm here in Las Vegas and Atticus kinda helped pick out a pumpkin.
 

We also went to a couple Halloween parties before taking Atticus to a few houses to "Too Twee" ("trick or treat")

 




 We thought he was the cutest little monster you ever saw, even if the costume was borrowed.

 



Here are a few more fun highlights from the month of October:


He likes broccoli now!  He was two fisting it a couple nights ago.