A Snowy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has come and gone and with it, comes another blog from the Lundeen Household! The weekend before the festivities, we took full advantage of the snowy Saturday by heading out and "enjoying" the snowflakes. As you can see, Titus really was enjoying himself in the snow! Neither he, nor his sister were real interested in keeping their mittens on! After the tears subsided, we blew the dust off of our sled, invited our neighbor Jackson over and enjoyed some fun up and down our driveway...and even more so, enjoyed the hot chocolate that came after!

We enjoyed spending Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving with Auntie Courtney, Uncle Scottie, Grandma Lucie, Bumpa and Hudson and Dutch (the dogs). Auntie Courtney cooked her first turkey (more than Mom can say) and the kids seemed to especially enjoy Uncle Scottie's homemade pies. We now turn our full attention to Christmas! Evie LOVES everything about it (hmmm, I wonder where she gets that from)! The lights, the music, watching Grinchy on TV, decorating trees, watching our neighbors put up lights, parties, egg nog, baking cookies, wrapping presents, looking at Christmas cards. She talks to a picture of her with Santa from two years ago most days and loves to wake up and find Sam, her Elf on the Shelf, each morning. Tomorrow, we start our Advent calendar! Thank goodness for the Dollar Section at Target and Michael's!

Thanksgiving 2009... 2011

Evie insists her pajamas say "What Santa Doesn't Bring Me, Grandma LUCIE Will!"

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

The Christmas lights are up at the Lundeen household and we are excited to start plugging them in (although when Evie eats all of her meals, I sometimes cheat a bit and plug in the ones on the front deck for an hour or so to both our delights)!

The highlight of the decorating came when Dad knocked down a now dormant wasp's nest and he and Evie spent some time investigating it. The wheels were turning in that curious mind of hers! She finally got brave enough to hold it herself even!

Mr. Titus is getting bigger, stronger and faster everyday. He now crawls with ease, although still seems to want to walk with some assistance rather than craw someplace. He hates to get his nose wiped. He loves to do big boy things, like sit at the picnic, ritz crackers, sucking his thumb, throwing balls, clapping, dancing and his new (to us) toy: the door! We even took him swimming last weekend at the indoor pool and he got such a thrill out of "jumping" into my arms from the edge (more of a fall really, but he couldn't get enough of it)!

Sibbling Love!

When we first brought Titus home from the hospital, Evie asked us when he was going to go back. I am happy to report that, in the past nearly 11 months, they have made some great progress! The highlight of my day is to watch the two of them interact. Titus loves Evie and Evie loves Titus. They are starting to play together and, with Evie's help, we finally got Titus to walk up a flight of stairs...anything to follow his big sister around! My favorite story happened a few days ago while returning home from Lifetime. We had left a snack-trap of goldfish snacks in the car and Evie had found them. All of the sudden I looked in the rear view mirror and would see a little hand stick out of Titus' car seat and Evie would put a goldfish in it. 45 seconds later, the hand came out again and Evie would put another fish in it. This went on the whole way home. Something about it was so sweet to me because it was like the two of them were speaking their own language without saying a word. Titus knew what he wanted and Evie knew what he wanted too!

Unfortunately, with that love comes loving on Titus TOO much! Last weekend Evie decided she wanted to "carry" Titus into the bathroom to join mom and dad brushing their teeth in there. Evie only weighs about 10 pounds more than Titus and she figured out pretty quickly he was a bit too heavy for her. As you can see in the above picture, Titus' nose took the brunt of the fall into the corner of the bathroom door! He bled pretty well from both nostrils and had a cut from the middle of his nose down to his mouth. Poor guy! He recovered from it well and just in time to contract pink eye from his sister! I guess it's more than goldfish they share!

Argh, Roar and Happy Halloween!

What an adventurous past week at our crazy household! Evie and I spent the better part of an evening last week decorating pumpkins. Although she was mostly interested in "the guts" of the pumpkins, she was pretty proud to put them on our front porch and light them up! We didn't get too crazy this year with our designs, but I think Evie loved getting to help in the process!

On Halloween day, we started off with some orange oatmeal (naturally) and a party at the Chaska Community Center, followed by a visit to Uncle Scottie's office to show off our costumes. After dinner, it was "frick or freat" time, as Evie says it. She and Chad joined the Bulls for a trip around our neighborhood, while Titus and I stayed behind and ate, I mean passed out candy to our neighborhood friends. Titus' favorite choice: almond joys. Evie's fave: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!

The following night, we were invited to the Hilton Halloween party downtown. Although we had our pirate and lion along, the costumes were quickly ditched in order to bounce in the bouncy house and run like crazy through the Hilton! Evie loved getting to meet Belle and eating chocolate hummus (as did her mother).

The best/saddest part of the past week was saying good-bye to our beloved neighbors and friends, The Thousands. We had a Halloween Party/Going Away Party at our house with pumpkin decorating and carmel apple stations. It was a fun way to say goodbye to some of our closest friends as they moved to Wisconsin on Tuesday.

And in other, non-Halloween related news, Titus is showing more signs of movement every day. He can take about 5-6 strides on a crawl and will cruise all around the living room walking while holding onto anything he can find. Whereas Evie seemed to have more of the ability and less of the desire to walk, Titus seems the opposite! He is all gung-ho to try it, he just hasn't quite put all of the moving pieces together yet! Go, Titus, Go!

We have been "Booed!!!"

While eating dinner last night, the doorbell rang at the Lundeen household. When Evie and Chad went to check who was there, they discovered and empty porch and found we had been "BOOED!" I had never heard of this until last night and think it is an awesome idea!

For those of you like me not in the know, being "booed" means a neighbor left a bag of homemade goodies on our front porch with a Halloween Poem and sign saying we got booed. We get to enjoy the goodies (oh, and they were good) and in return need to make our own goodies, poem, etc. to pass along to two of our unsuspecting neighbors. Once we get booed, we place the sign in our front door so the neighbors know who has and has not been "booed!" Evie and I will be making chocolate chip muffins and brownies after nap time today (her choices) to boo some other neighbors! I love fun traditions!

Poor Titus! I am starting to have a bit of sympathy for my little sister in watching what he goes through as the little brother on a daily basis! Although 99% of what occurs to him is done out of a huge love his big sister has for him, I am still not sure what he makes of things! Evie's newest favorite move is to help me get Titus up from his nap. Although this sounds sweet and harmless, let me clarify what getting him up entails. As soon as she hears a sound from his monitor, she runs into his room screaming "wake up, Titus" and immediately jumps into his crib with him (and I do mean JUMP). Most of the time, Titus quite enjoys watching this process, but other times he is still in and out of sleep and I can't help but think what an interesting way for him to be jolted into reality!

A few weekends ago, we helped usher Autumn in with a visit to Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard in Jordan. We went with our good friends, the Bulls, and loved looking at the leaves, taste testing different apples and going out on the tractor to find the trees with our favorite flavored apples. Honeycrisp and Sweet Sixteens were our top choices this year. We also enjoyed having lunch on the patio and playing in the hay! The Bulls are always troopers letting us be the fifth, sixth and seventh wheels!

We won't have to sing "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" at Christmastime this year! Titus' teeth (yes, plural) have arrived! Within a week, his bottom two teeth have come in and we are thinking his top two are ready as well! The picture below is him showing off his new pearly whites! Also included are a few pictures of Titus being "Battey" for his Mama! Oh, I miss my maiden name during this time of year! Happy Autumn!