With Thanksgiving tomorrow, Shane is our greatest blessing and what we are most thankful for. Of course, we are thankful for many things. I am thankful for Dan, for his health, and we are both thankful for each other and for our wonderful family and friends, but Shane... well he is just amazing! Being his mom is such an honor!
OK, now on to what we have been up to since I last blogged! We started out November by voting. Shane can now say "vote" probably because I made such a big deal about it. I made it a point of telling Shane how lucky we are to live in a country where we have the right to vote. I also am a big believer that you have no right to complain about politics if you do not exercise your voting privilege. We waited until Dan got home so we could vote as a family. The elections did not go exactly how I had hoped (a shocking democratic sweep would have been nice!) but at least we do not have to live in a state run by Bill Brady! I do not love Gov. Quinn, but at least he is not Bill Brady! We are raising Shane to understand the value of education, the rights of women and homosexuals, and to value animals - all of which Bill Brady rebukes. OK, I am off my soap box! Here are pictures of us voting with Shane. I think the other voters thought we were nuts for taking pictures, but like I said, we are teaching Shane how important voting is!
Shane falls more in love with animals, particularly Thunder, everyday! In fact, Shane now requests dog clothing when I am picking out his outfit for the morning. Thankfully, I love dog clothes so he has some, but not enough to wear daily! As soon as he sees me approach his dresser in the morning, he says, "Woof, woof!" If I can find puppy clothes, he is a happy boy! He also kisses and hugs Thunder way more than he kisses and hugs Dan or I! On the morning I took these pictures, we came downstairs for breakfast and found Thunder on the couch. We don't let him on the leather couches, but before I could say anything, Shane was hugging and kissing Thunder so I grabbed the camera and let Thunder be!
Shane and I took advantage of the beautiful weather last week and made some more visits to the park! He has so much fun on the slide and in the swing! he is just a happy kid! I climb up the slide with him in case he should fall and then slide down after him, which is why you will see my shoes in one of the slide pictures!
On Veteran's Day we were supposed to have a photographer come over to take our pictures for our holiday cards, but he forgot... More on that later. Anyway, in preparation for his arrival we finished decking the house out for Hanukkah and Christmas! Shane helped Dan put up the tree!
When the photographer did not show up, we had lunch, put Shane down for a nap, and headed to the park to celebrate more perfect weather! We have not been back to the park since, but I sure hope we get some more nice weather & we don't have to wait until spring to go back!
Shane, in another doggy shirt here, loves to sing and dance! His favorite song is currently "Itsy Bitsy Spider" here we are singing it!
OK, more pictures of Shane in doggy outfits & more of him and his best buddy Thunder!
Itsy Bitsy is a favorite song to sing, but in the car we listen exclusively to Shane's Elmo CD. I think I am starting to lose my mind from it! We cannot get into the car without playing the CD or he has a fit. He likes to listen to it over and over again the whole time we are in the car - no matter how long that is! We went shopping with Cathy and Alex the other day and left the outlet mall at 1 - Shane's nap time. I was sure he'd fall asleep in the car on the way home, but no, he stayed awake to listen to Elmo. Every time it got quiet and I thought he was asleep, I heard a loud "LA LA, LA LA!" (what Shane calls Elmo) from the back seat and had to put Elmo back on. We just bought Shane tickets to see Elmo Live on January 14th and I think I am more excited to see his face when he sees Elmo than I am to see Bon Jovi in concert!
OK, now on to the photo shoot in our house. Over the summer I purchased a 'YouSwoop' (like Groupon) for $40.00 for a photographer to come to our house, shoot pictures for an hour, give us the CD, and make us 50 prints. I was so excited because 1) it was cheap & 2) I thought having pictures snapped in our house would make Shane and Thunder happier. I was wrong. Not only did the photographer forget to show up on the first day we scheduled, but he was awful. I mean bad! Out of 119 pictures, we had none that we could use on our holiday card. Yes, I said NONE! At least none with Thunder. That meant we had to book the Picture People because they are the only studio besides JC Penney that takes dogs (and JC Penney only takes them the last Sunday of the month - too late for Hanukkah cards this year) and we really wanted Thunder in our picture! The photographer, who has 3 kids under the age of 5, did nothing to make Shane smile. He was just silently taking pictures. That left Dan and I to entertain Shane while we were in the picture - not a good idea. Dan looks like a duck in a few and my mouth is wide open - it was bad! Dan kept begging him to help us out. He was not capable. Besides the fact that he did nothing to make my happy child smile, his lighting was awful and the pictures are dark. I am going to post a sampling of the best ones.
Oh well, we did go to the Picture People and they are expensive, but good. Here are a few of the pictures from that session. These are not my favorites, those are on the holiday cards you will all be receiving soon!
As I think I mentioned before, Shane loves Elmo. When Dan is home on the weekends, they watch episodes of Sesame Street that I TIVO during the week. It is really sweet. Here they are in bed on a Saturday morning.
Dan just finished celebrating his big birthday week & Shane is still coming down from his sugar high from all of the cake! We made Dan his favorite Gum Drop bars the day before his birthday and went out for dinner that night. Dan's birthday fell on report card pick up this year so he got to go into work a little later and sleep in, but he got home at 7:30 that night. Shane (in his PJs) and I waited for him with German Chocolate cake & presents. Here are the pictures from Dan's actual birthday.
Shane is so lucky to have a dad like Dan who loves him so much and looks forward to spending time with him! I definitely married well! I love Dan so much and watching him as a dad has made me love him even more!
Dan's birthday celebration continued into the weekend when we met Kristine and Connor to celebrate and then on Saturday we had my parents and Dan's parents over for lunch and cake.
Shane is lucky to have two sets of grandparents who adore him! Shane now calls all of his grandparents Papa which is too funny. Yes, he even calls both of his grandmas Papa. They both find it hysterical and so do we! Here are some pictures of Shane and his four papas.
In between all of the birthday celebrations for Dan, Shane had his friend Augie over for a play date. They had a blast!
OK, I now truly understand the magic of the Holiday season. When we took Shane to The Picture People we brought my grandmother's menorah to use in some pictures and watching Shane put the candles in the menorah was so fun! (Note, that picture is on our holiday card so do not look for it in this blog.) At home, Dan has placed the reindeer on the lawn and the train around the tree. Shane is so excited. The reindeer are so funny because Shane thinks they are horses. Normally we would correct him, but we don't know how. You see Shane looks at them and says, "NEIGH, NEIGH, NEIGH" and we don't know what sound reindeer make to correct him. When Shane thought horses were dogs & he called them "woof woofs", we would say, "No, this is a horse, neigh, neigh." We have no idea what, if any, sounds a reindeer make so we are going with horses. Does that make us bad parents? I can only imagine the look on our neighbors faces when we ate dinner outside with the horses. Especially if they heard us calling them horses... Shane loves the "horses" so much that he wants to be near them and hug them all of the time. He gets hysterical when we make him come in from outside or when we close the front door. That is why he ate dinner with them the other night. It is so cute! here are some pictures and video. The first picture is blurry but it really captures his excitement and you can see his mouth open and almost hear him yelling, "NEIGH!"
As I mentioned earlier, Shane also loves the "choo choo" under the tree. It was so fun to watch his wonder as the train went around the tree. Dan and I had tears in our eyes watching him. It was so cool to see. Here are a few pictures. The second is my absolute favorite!
Before I end this post, I just wanted to tell you all how thankful I am that you are a part of Shane's life. He is lucky to have so many wonderful people who follow his progress! Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!!
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