Family Home Evening Talent

Drew is starting to read. He watches a video every morning after breakfast called "Your Baby Can Read" and he is starting to reconize words on the flash cards that came with the videos.

Home Improvements

Josh has been in a home improvement mode trying to get the house ready for the baby, and that also means keeping Steph happy. With warm weather hopefully on the way Josh installed a ceiling fan in the master bedroom. Not being much a mister fix it, Josh was quite proud to have installed without breaking anything!

With the baby girl on the way we had to clear out the old office and turn it into a baby room. This meant some rearranging of furniture. In the process Drew gladly gave his dresser to the baby girl and in exchange Josh sanded and painted an old dresser for Drew. Notice if you will Drew requested it to be painted Chicago Bulls colors!

The baby girl's room is now completely painted. Josh painted the walls and Steph's co-worker Keri Carter painted the flowers and butterflies. She did an amazing job!

Our little Batman

I got a new camera for my birthday, so we have been taking pictures. The problem is that I have not blogged in so long, that I don't know where to start. Josh got Andrew these new PJ's the other day, cape and all. Batman is, according to Josh, the most invincible superhero there is, so he wanted Drew to have the opportunity to be like Batman. I think Josh had more fun with Drew running around in this outfit than anyone else in the house!
We've been working on getting the house ready for our new baby girl. It's coming up fast! I'll post pictures of the finished room when it's all complete. We're getting there, and for those of you on facebook, you have probably seen a "preview" of the room on Josh's page.
On another piece of news, Drew started to read last week. I'll get video soon to put on the page, but he has a few little flashcards that we use with him, and he knows a number of the words on the cards now. He loves to read, and with this new knowledge, I hope he continues to grow and learn and enjoy reading as he gets older!

It's A Girl

So if you haven't heard yet, we are having a girl! Steph is due in late June (28th) and we just found out this last week that we will soon have a baby girl. Josh has been teaching Drew that it will be his duty to look after her and protect her when they are old enough to go to school. We haven't picked a name out yet, but early favorites include: Sydney, Natalie, Elizabeth, and Juliette among others. Who knows what the name will be because we constantly change our minds. During the ultrasound she (unnamed baby girl) was moving around a lot, and appeared to be sucking her thumb. She also crossed her arms at one point, we don't know if she was praying or throwing up gang signs! Either way she is growing and healthy, so far so good!

Drew the Musician

Andrew has a love for music. In church he sways his head to the hymns (picture Ray Charles as a baby), and at home he loves the piano and he enjoyed drumming on Rock Band with his uncle Dan.

So since the last blog update we have learned that Drew loves to vacuum. He tries to take away the vacuum from us, so we give him the push vac to clean along side us. This keeps him quite entertained and he has on occasion used the push vac until the battery dies!

More Random Drew Videos

Thanksgiving and Christmas

This year for Thanksgiving we had the Merrill side come visit us. Since we wouldn't be able to get together for Christmas we also celebrated Christmas early with them.

Right before Christmas we got hit with a pretty sizeable snow storm. Drew and Josh were up to the task of shoveling it though (Drew supervised).

Christmas Eve we had Andra (Josh's sister) her boyfriend Kevin (or as Josh says Tevin) and Matt Entwistle over for dinner. Andra was nice enough to bring the whole meal- zuppa tuscana soup and various breads and cheeses.

Christmas day Drew woke up to realize that Santa had come and brought him a new "Little Tikes" basketball hoop. Drew saw it and said "Whooaaa!". That alone made Steph and Josh's Christmas.

Drew Videos

Trip to Florida

Last week we were able to take a trip to Tampa Bay, Florida. Steph had a work conference down there and it just so turns out that her Grandparents live down in Tarpon Springs. So Drew and Josh spent a good amount of time hanging out with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Jellum. We were able to take Drew down to the sponge docks in Tarpon, where we visited an aquarium, had some excellent Greek dessert among other things. At the aquarium we saw a shark feeding and 250 lb Grouper fish. After the shark feeding we headed down to the sponge docks and watch some sailors unload a fresh (can you call them fresh?) bunch of sponges. As we continued our walk we visited a Greek dessert shop (Tarpon has a huge Greek population) where we (Steph and Josh) shared a Greek chocolate mousse.

Overall the trip was fun, unfortunately the weather was rather cold (for Florida at least) and Drew wasn't able to get any time in the pool. All said though it was a fun quick trip to Florida and the Jellums really enjoyed playing with their great grandson.