quick update

You might have noticed that the posts have been few and far between lately, and I have to apologize for not getting more pictures and video of Drew onto here. Drew continues to surprise us with feats of athleticism (he's quite the jumper, and is learning to jump off of things, which we're NOT encouraging) and with his ability to pick up new words or skills after a single repetition. Drew's speaking in sentences and sometimes paragraphs, and to our amusement he's learned almost all the words to the song "Jesus Loves Me." He sings it some nights as he falls asleep, and it is pretty cute! He's also been growing lately to the point that adults have noticed at church and at daycare. Jana and I have noticed his growth because he keeps on outgrowing clothes! We're looking forward to celebrating Drew's 2nd birthday in a few weeks. We can't believe that our little boy is almost 2 already.

Jana had another doctor's visit for her pregnancy this past week that went very smoothly. She's now 25 weeks along, and everything is going as well as can be expected. Kate is moving a LOT (it's been fun for me to feel it), but she hasn't been bothering Jana too much with all the movement. Jana's pregnancy with Drew went very well and so our doctor's visits for that pregnancy were usually fairly short. With Kate, we've taken short to a whole new level! Quite often we spend more time walking to and from our car than we do seeing the doctor and the nurse. We're grateful though because everything is progressing so well that we don't need more time.

Next week I'm going to defend my doctoral dissertation. Once I'm done, that should free up more time for important stuff like updating Drew and Kate's blog! I miss posting pictures and writing stories about Drew :)

The HUGE Holiday Post

This is going to be a HUGE Christmas post encompassing most of our Christmas celebrations. I've been slowly plugging away on this post becuase it's been a while since I've had the chance to post more pictures and stories about Drew. Please bear with me as we cover a lot of territory! I also realized that I have lots of pictures of Drew opening presents. Lest you think our Christmas celebrations are all about presents, I want to thank each person who gave us gifts this year and explain that showing Drew's joy is part of our way of saying thank you. Thank you!! Our family enjoyed a wonderful Christmas season, and we have great memories of time spent with family and friends. We will cherish those memories long after the wrapping paper is thrown away and the gifts become part of our everyday world.


A few weeks ago we celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family, which provided Drew with his first opportunity of the season to open presents. He caught on pretty quickly! In this picture below he's opening a present from G.G. and Poppa (Great-grandma and Great-grandpa Vryhof) and Kelli, my brother Todd's girlfriend, is providing some assistance.

Drew opened the present, looked at it, and said "Laundry!" :) Most of his experience with clothes involves folding laundry with Jana and putting it away. Drew had a little run in with the cement driveway the day before this particular party, so you'll notice a small scrape on his forehead that heals over the Christmas season. Drew's still in the process of learning that the concrete always wins! Don't mess with it!

Here Drew and Poppa are checking out a present. Drew wandered all over the room helping everyone open their presents and checking out what each person received.

Here is Drew at it again lending a helping hand with the opening of a present. It will become obvious throughout this post: Drew was often the center of attention at our Christmas gatherings!

The only time Drew got distracted from the presents was when he got one of his own. Each time his world shrunk down to the present and he wasn't interested in anything else until he thoroughly checked out what he received. In this picture he's playing with his new toy train from GG and Poppa.

Drew thought that Gwen's new purse was pretty nice. He took it around the room to show everyone.

Drew was in charge of passing out the presents at this party (with some assistance from Kelli), so he found the present, got the name of who was supposed to receive it, and then he brought the present over to him/her.

Drew is excited about seeing what Grandma Sue is getting. I don't think opening presents ever got old to Drew, from these first presents all the way through Christmas. It's always thrilling to see what new thing will be under the wrapping paper!

Uncle Todd got a new gilly suit for Christmas, and Drew did NOT like it!! You can see Drew in the background and he wanted nothing to do with Uncle Todd in that suit. I have to admit myself that I think it looks a little freaky! This present was probably the one Drew liked the least of anything anyone received this Christmas. Back in Lansing, our friends Jeremy and Kristin stopped by to give Drew an Elmo submarine for the bathtub. Since receiving that present, Drew looks forward to taking baths with his new submarine!

Drew loves playing in the living room. This picture was taken when he was pretending to be asleep. Drew grabs a blanket, puts it down on the ground, lies down on it, and then starts fake snoring (while giggling away). Drew's starting to understand humor a little bit, and just this morning when we went into his room to get him up he told us that "I'm funny. I'm funny."

We celebrated Christmas as a family in Lansing, and Jana and I got Drew some Tonka trucks, which we've both always enjoyed. Here is Drew with his backhoe and front end loader tractor. He's got saying "front end loader" and "backhoe" down, and I'll try to have some video of him with this toy posted soon. I'm catching up on pictures first, and then I'll get to all the videos!

Drew immediately started figuring out how to work the backhoe. I can't wait to take this toy outside with him this summer. It's going to be dirty and messy!

Drew also got a big Tonka dump truck, which he enjoyed riding on. He puts stuff in it and pushes it around, and he likes to tilt the bed up and ride the truck around the house. The truck is almost as big as Drew!

The next set of pictures is from our Christmas celebration with Jana's family. Drew was very excited about the attention and having more presents to help people open. While he doesn't talk around everyone as much as he does at home, Drew loves being in the limelight.

Drew is a huge fan of trucks, cars, planes, boats, motorcycles, or basically anything with an engine that moves. He was very excited about these Matchbox cars from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa John. Jana and I had to take them away temporarily so that Drew would continue to pay attention to the rest of the presents!

As usual, if there was a present being opened, then Drew was on top of it.

Drew opened this Richard Scarry book and immediately the rest of us were forgotten while he perused the pages.

This book by Richard Scarry has been the source of some amazement to Jana and me. Last weekend, Drew sat with me and we read the ENTIRE book (it's 69 pages long) and all the text. He remained engaged for over an hour and a half while I was reading. In addition, he does amazingly well with finding a tiny bug (Goldbug) hidden on each page. He is sometimes better at it than me in that he finds Goldbug more quickly rather frequently on new pages and he remembers where Goldbug is on each page better than me. It is humbling to be shown up by our 23-month-old!!

When Drew first saw this big present coming out from behind the Christmas tree, he said "Whoa!" Just the fact that it was in a big box got him excited!

I have to admit that there are several presents Drew received that Jana and I are just as excited about playing with as Drew is. This new train set from Aunt Christina is one of them! Kids' toys are so much fun (even for grown ups)!

Drew is getting ready to tackle his new polar bear from Christina's boyfriend Matt. The new polar bear is easily Drew's biggest stuffed animal (although remember when Drew was little and we compared his size to smaller stuffed animals?). The polar bear is going to be a great wrestling partner for Drew because they are so similar in size.

Here's another present that we're excited about Drew enjoying: his new tricycle. We're planning on enjoying it in our basement for now, but we're looking forward to taking it outside this spring.

Drew immediately jumped onto the tricycle like an old pro, although he doesn't move the pedals very well yet. The tricycle folds up, which we're excited about, so we can transport it easily in our car.

Occasionally, Drew took a break from his biking to look around and see what the rest of us were doing. He also had to make sure that we were watching him!

Drew and Christina enjoyed looking out the back window to find squirrels. Drew got very excited every time we saw one in the tree outside the window.

Drew loves reading "The Smells of Christmas" at my parents' house, which is a book my mom read to me when I was little. It contains scratch and sniff pages, and Drew is quite adept at smelling them and saying "P.U. (stinky)" and cracking up.

On Christmas morning at my parent's house Drew awoke to find a full stocking. He was very excited about having so many small presents to open.

Drew is checking out one of the cars in his stocking in this picture, and in front of him you can see his first package of big boy underwear! Drew got some NFL underwear that is quite manly (I might want a pair myself :) Drew's not quite ready for the underwear yet, but we're hoping to start some potty training with him this summer. The NFL underwear should help our cause!

Grandpa Bill showed Drew how to work his new ambulance. The back opens up and reveals a patient being treated.

The cupboards in Grandma Sue's kitchen open (no child locks like at home), so Drew has a great time exploring their contents. Drew pulled out some pots and pans and proceeded to "cook" for all of us. Drew's going to make a great husband someday; he already has shown interest in mowing the lawn, cleaning, folding laundry, and now cooking! :)

Drew also discovered the flashlights behind another door. He plays with my flashlights at home, so he knew just what to do when he found Grandpa's flashlights.

Drew is fascinated by my parents' Christmas Candle Carousel. At times he would disappear into the other room to stare at this and to blow on the blades to make it spin. For those of you not familiar with it, the four candles can be lit and the heat from the candles rises and causes a draft that propels the blades and rotates the center part. Drew is cheating by blowing on it!

Grandpa Bill came over to show Drew how to really make it go around (he can blow on the blades a lot better than Drew can). You can see Drew is trying to add some wind of his own.

My mom keeps some toy cars and trucks in her purse, so when Drew got a bunch of toy cars and trucks for Christmas he wanted a purse of his own to store the toys. Where does he come up with this stuff? Grandma found him a purse and he proceeded to put his toy cars in and out of the purse. That's where they are kept, obviously!

You'll see Jana doing this in my next post, but Drew has been battling a cold and required some breathing treatments to open up his airway. Drew puts this little mask on with the nebulizer and gets a little Albuterol to help him out. It's been working very well and he's back to 100% now! Grandma Sue read Drew a book while he got his pre-nap treatment.

When it was time to open presents, Drew helped again by finding presents and passing them out. He loves sneaking under the tree to grab a present!

Drew helped GG with the bow on her present. He was always willing to lend a hand with opening a present! Drew not only helped with opening presents, but he also got rid of trash. We are very amused by how much Drew enjoys being useful.

By the way, did I mention that Drew enjoyed being the center of attention? :)

Drew found that this truck was "broken" (it wasn't really broken) and decided that we needed a tool to fix it. He kept saying "It's broken, it's broken," until we got him a tool to fix it. The tool the job required according to Drew was a pliers, which he picked out himself. After a few turns of the pliers, it was fixed again and ready to go.

This was my favorite present this Christmas. Oops, I mean this was one of Drew's presents from Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill. A Little Tikes basketball hoop! I'm very excited about having this in the basement and showing Drew how to play basketball. I might happen to occasionally use the hoop myself as well :)

The hoop is still slightly tall for Drew because he hasn't learned how to shoot yet, and he prefers to dunk every time. We're working on that because you can't dunk all the time (although I would like to!), you need to shoot it every once in a while!

Here's a final picture of Drew playing. He has loved getting all the new toys to play with and we cleaned out a lot of his current toys at home to make room for the new ones. We're also doing what we did last year, which is putting the toys in a rotation, so they appear and disappear as if by magic. Drew doesn't even notice when they disappear, but he loves seeing a "new" toy to play with. We're so sneaky! Phew! I think this was one of my longest blog posts ever! Thanks again to everyone for a wonderful Christmas season. Drew thoroughly enjoyed his time with family and friends and so did Jana and I. This year generated many humorous and endearing Drew stories that we will cherish for years to come!