A really long catch up blog

Hello everyone! After quite the absence, we've finally gotten around to blogging again. I'm going to try to get the pictures in chronological order, but some of these pictures were taken a while ago.

Let's start with Halloween:

I know a monkey isn't the most original Halloween costume, but he sure looked cute. We went trick-or-treating to a few houses with some of Michael's classmates and also participated in our ward's trunk-or-treat. It was fun to watch Drew as he figured out the trick-or-treating routine. Some people would let him choose his own out of the bowl and he showed a clear preference for suckers. The stickiest treat that takes the longest to eat. I would have preferred him to pick out something chocolate. Oh well, trick-or-treating is for the kids right?...

Drew gets his haircut

Michael and I did give Drew his first ever hair cut and I think it turned out ok. But since then, Drew has been invited to get his haircut with the big boys. Michael, his dad, and Ian all go to the same barber: Jimmy. Never to anyone else. This is because Jimmy always gives great haircuts. We keep Drew occupied with french fries (one of his favourite treats). He's had a few haircuts with Jimmy now and they've all gone really well. Drew doesn't even mind the occasional hair in his fries (although it grosses me out).

Drew's hair is much more curly now than in these pictures (see pictures below of Drew in the brown sweater). He had a hair cut yesterday and I was so sad to see those beautiful curls get cut off, but I know they'll grow back soon. I wonder what baby number 2's hair will be like...

Christmas visit in Florida

We were able to meet Sheila and her family in Florida around Christmas time and had a lots of fun. One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to Sea World. Here is Drew riding the carousel - one of the only rides he could go on. The creatures you could ride were pretty neat looking. I'm not sure who had more fun - Drew or me.

Drew also loved seeing all the different animals at Sea World. He really loves animals and fish and I love watching him get excited about seeing an animal we've talked about or seen pictures of in a book. The absolute coolest thing we saw at Sea World though was the Dolphin show. We went to it twice it was so amazing. This is the 'stage':

Drew was just fascinated. And so were we! there were people getting launched off dolphin's noses, riding them across the water, doing fancy dives off of super high platforms, doing tricks on swings high above the water, and birds flying over the heads of the audience. We bought Drew a plastic dolphin as a souvenir and whenever we play with it he still talks about how dolphins "jump" and "splash".

New Year's day

The weather was beautiful on January 1st so we decided to go the the zoo in Louisville. Drew liked chasing the Canadian geese.

We also saw this really crazy looking monkey. His dreadlocks were almost unreal. They just flowed around him like a robe.

Kristi and Elliot visit

Kristi and Elliot came to visit early in the new year. We visited the Exporium in Lexington and the boys got to 'ride' a horse.

The boys had lots of fun together on their visit and we were glad they could come!

Valentine's Day

Grandma and Grandpa Takahashi sent Drew a dollar in his Valentine's day card so we decided to walk to the Walgreens around the corner and let Drew pick out a treat. He was really excited. It's amazing how young kids learn what the word "treat" means.

He picked out some peanut butter M&M's (I may have helped him in his choice a little... but I knew he would really like them). He handed the M&M's and the dollar to the cashier all by himself.

Drew loves M&M's, but he also loves any kind of chocolate really. Even the dark 70% cocoa stuff that I like. I don't know how he got his hands on a piece that big. After we took the picture (it was just too cute) we gave him a much smaller piece as a treat.

April

In April, my younger sister and brother, Lene and Erik, came to visit. As always when Lene comes to visit, she took some lovely photos. All of the photos below are hers. I'm 36 weeks pregnant I think in this photo.

Drew was not really cooperating with the photo shoot that day, but we did manage to get this photo of him smiling. I think Uncle Erik was doing something silly. What a sweet boy I have!
Lene and I visited a little farm/zoo in Louisville called Henry's ark. It's someone's farm they have set up for visitors. They have a few exotic animals (zebras, peacocks, camels, llamas, those things that look like really big guinea pigs..) and some regular farm type animals (pigs, roosters/chickens, ducks, turkeys, bunnies). Some of the animals were fenced in, but some were just wandering around (like the peacocks, llamas, roosters)

Luckily, we had some carrots in the car to feed the zebras and llamas. They had 2 zebras and one was pregnant.

The llama's were just wandering around the parking lot. Drew loved feeding them carrots. Their teeth made me a little nervous, but they mostly used their lips. Once we fed them a few carrots, they started following us around. It was a little scary. When we left, I had to back out very slowly to avoid hitting the ones that came too close to the car looking for more carrots.

Well that's it for now. We have lot's of other pictures that we'll try to post later. Along with pictures of our new baby when he comes!