Andy, Andrea, Alex, Evelyn, & Audrey: Grandma Brooke's Visit through Mid-December 09

Just had a few pictures from our camera at Thanksgiving, but these include some of Alex brushing his teeth before his bath using his new stepstool. After Gram left, Grandma Brooke came to visit at the beginning of December. Since Andy still had the camera in Germany, we used her camera for pictures. Here are the pics from her visit. While Grandma was here, we took Alex to ride the train and carousel at the mall...both of which he loves to do. We also went to the zoo to see the holiday lights and ride the train there which he liked too...he said choo choo over and over. We had a fun time with Grandma on her visit and Alex loved the attention. His favorite things to play are to serve dinner from his play food and kitchen stuff, to whoosh his airplanes all around, push trains, read, say letters, and count. I managed to get a Christmas tree and mom helped me decorate it with white lights (note: always check that your lights work BEFORE you put them on the tree), and red and gold balls. I also got the rest of our decorations up, though I am keeping it on the conservative side this year as I think January will be busy for putting them away!
Alex went to preschool for the 3rd time and it went much better than the others. He is doing great at the daycare at the YMCA while mom works out on Tuesday mornings (yoga class) too. He says "play, play, Y, play" on the way there and runs right in so I have to remind him to give me a kiss goodbye.
I had an ultrasound at 34 weeks to check on the baby's growth, as my belly measures a little small for my number of weeks. Everything looked great, and the doctor agrees I will probably have another slightly small baby...no complaints here!
My best friend had a visit planned for after my mom left, but a knee injury prevented her coming (hopefully she'll make it out after the baby is born now!). So, Alex and I hung out for the last week of Andy being gone and kept busy with getting ready for the holidays. My girlfriends threw a baby sprinkle for me while Alex was at school which was really nice. Yiotula put out a great brunch spread and I got some wonderful cute little girl gifts to welcome the new baby. It was great to be spoiled by and spend time with the girls mid-week!
Finally, Andy came home on Saturday night and Alex was so excited to see him. Andy had called most days and was so anxious to see all the changes in Alex he heard in just that short time (15 days--it felt like a long time to me!) Some of Alex's favorite words right now are snowman, ho-ho-ho, and choo choo, so he's been sharing those with daddy and showing off his letter and number skills. He can pick out several letters and numbers and has counted up to 8 on his own (which apparently is his favorite number, with D, H, and M all being tied for fave letter) We had Sunday to spend most of the day as a family before Andy dove into his finals this week. We went to the mall so Andy could see Alex enjoy the train (videos below) and Alex and Andy played ball (Alex puts a good spiral on his little football) and roughhoused. I had to show Andy Alex's booty shaking skills we've been working on, so he took a short video of that too. Here are the pictures from after Andy came home...they include one (edited) of Alex's newest trick: taking off his pants and diaper which he has taken to doing every time we put him down to sleep (which doesn't make mom very happy). The poor kiddo has an ear infection, so he is on meds (which he actually likes to take now) and is doing ok despite the coughing, runny nose, etc. Next up for us is celebrating Christmas here at home and guessing when our little girl will get here!