Andrew John Kent

We’re looking forward to having a spring filled with more activities and visiting family. In the meantime we’ve been keeping busy with bike rides, gymnastics time and swim lessons.

We went sledding on Art Hill this afternoon in the “heat” of the day. I think it got up to 22!

Wishing a healthy and happy new year to all of you!  We had a nice New Year’s party (at 6pm) at home. We let the boys “stay up” until 8pm and we watched the London countdown on YouTube. Then they were a mess to try to get to bed!

We had a socially distant but still very nice Christmas! Christmas Eve mass at home was much less stressful, no problem getting seats and dinner could cook in the oven while we watched.

Andrew was VERY excited about the presents and was carrying them around the house. He really liked the super hero wrapping paper.

When the weather warmed up after Christmas, we went over and visited with family in Grandpa and Grandma’s backyard. The boys had fun with their cousin and playing with Christmas presents.

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy holiday season!

Andrew is fully embracing being 2 these days, we’re seeing some emotional roller coasters but also a lot of new intelligence.

Tonight he did a super hero puzzle that was for ages 5+. And while he didn’t work independently, he did a lot of pieces on his own! Then he immediately wanted to take it apart and do it again.

He says all kinds of cute stuff now. Whenever he hears anyone asked, “Did you…”. He responds, “I did!” He’s also really good at saying, “I need help Mommy.” And, “I did it!” after he does just about anything. He also loves listening to “gongs” (songs).

Well we didn’t let the pandemic deter us from our yearly visit to pumpkinland. We did go early though, wear masks and be careful. I asked Tommy to take his mask off for pictures and he says, “Wait so there’s no coronavirus here?” Well…

Everytime I tried to get Andrew to smile by the pumpkins he just kept posing like he was in a magazine photo shoot.

Andrew’s getting better and better at communicating verbally. This morning he ran over to me holding our box of air rockets and said, “rocketship.” So we went out and launched some. Listen for his “countdown”. “1, 2, 3, 5!”

Two nights ago he wanted us to come up and say good night again. He first tried yelling, “Daddy!” When that didn’t work he yelled, “baby Yoda, baby Yoda!” Lol that one did work, he had thrown out his baby Yoda, to get us to come give it back to him.

Andrew’s back at his daycare now and he’s doing really well. They make a big effort to get the kids outside everyday, no matter what the weather, and Andrew really enjoys that.

So glad these two love each other and enjoy spending time together!

Andrew loves wearing a facemask, though he doesn’t keep it on for long.

Andrew has gotten really into stickers. He put all of these down in record time.

Andrew loves to climb!

We did lots of tree climbing this summer since playgrounds were closed

To celebrate the last day of summer break, we went paddle boating in Forest Park.

No fireworks here, but the boys had a fun time shooting off a water rocket.

And Andrew loves Grandma time. When he gets out of the car he beelines to the house yelling, “Gamma!”

Andrew had a great 2nd birthday! To start the day off, he made friends with a duck. Which, let me tell you, is basically every 2-year-old’s dream.

Then we invited our neighbor over for birthday cookies ?.

The next day we got to have a party with Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, a cousin and a dog!

It was a pretty exciting weekend!

I’d like to take a minute to remember Andrew’s birth mom on this special day as well. Some decisions really are life-changing. And we’re so, so grateful that our lives were changed 2 years ago when Andrew’s birth mom made her decision. We will always hold her in our hearts ❤️.

We did some yummy social distancing at Ted Drewes. He’s really tired here because he was playing out in our little pool all day. I like the drip coming off the spoon, you can guess where those drips ended up ?.

Andrew got a haircut from Mommy. It went decently well, with Elmo on the tablet of course.

A lot of days over here look kind of like Wrestle Mania.

The boys like to pick the raspberries, strawberries and black raspberries we have growing in our garden. Andrew has a generous idea of which berries are “ready” to pick. You’d think the sour taste would deter him but not yet.

Well we’re still staying home. Looking at a summer spent not going fun places is a little disheartening but we’re finding ways to still have fun. We have a blow up pool for the boys. This is from earlier this spring when it was actually warm.

The boys like to watch Elmo together.

We go on a lot of walks.

I’ve been doing my exercising at home while I watch the boys. Here’s Andrew joining in on some squats.

And Andrew’s early soccer skills are shockingly good. He’s got dribbling down.

We did a little Easter photo shoot today in the nice weather.

Here’s one of the “failed” pics but I still like it. Andrew was deciding he was done with pictures.

Well we’ve been socially isolating for a full week now. Andrew doesn’t seem to mind it too much though. We’re doing home schooling now and we get outside to play a lot each day.

Tommy and Andrew have come up with lots of ways to entertain themselves at home. Here they are doing maintenance on the car.

Andrew is doing stairs totally independently now, he refuses help when offered. We’ve officially entered the “my do it” phase.

My home schooling must really be great because Andrew has learned how twist apart an Oreo!

We’ve been trying to stay home starting yesterday. Andrew DJ’d our morning.

Pics from Andrew’s classroom art project at school. This is Andrew to a T. He loves doing things with his hands and making a mess! You can tell he’s really living his best life with that glitter.

When Andrew’s not at school he’s usually, swinging, climbing or sliding. And even doing experiments in static electricity, see video below.

Andrew came home with a bag full of Valentine’s treats from daycare, and let’s just say he’s now a BIG fan of the holiday.

In other updates, Andrew likes to join Tommy doing homework. He’s a very proficient scribbler.

And he’s quite the confident climber. He can go up stairs on his feet now and when he’s ready to go down he’ll wait at the top until we hold his hand so he can go down on his feet too. ? In this picture he’s saying, “you know you’re getting me down from here, right?”

Well it was a long time coming, but at 19 months Andrew finally had enough hair for a haircut. It took all of 5 minutes but he sat beautifully the whole time. It helps they have a tv.

18 months has brought a lot of new independence. Andrew wants to do everything the big kids do. He has also learned the word “no” and that he’s able to have opinions on things. So it’s going to be an exciting year!

Here he is trying out the big swing.

First rock climbing.

Left Tommy, right Tom (Dad)

We went to Christmas Eve mass because Tommy sang in the choir this year.

But we had to get there early so we hung out for awhile.

Merry Christmas!

Fun in the snow today ❄️

Andrew got to see Santa twice, but wasn’t too excited either time.

Andrew had a fun first trip to California. We went to the beach but it was a little chilly. He had fun playing with his cousin Sophie and Grandpa and all the family.

Having some fun at LAX on the way back. The kid’s a natural.

Monkeying around at baggage claim.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us. We’re at Tom’s sister’s house and Andrew was very happy that he got to help take their dog “Coco” for a walk. He loves dogs!

Andrew and Tommy’s favorite game to play together is to climb up behind the couch and roll down the cushions. Andrew doesn’t really understand rolling yet though, so his is more of a face dive.

We took some pictures after Aunt Kay’s funeral of all the boys dressed up.

And they found something to climb.

Here are the boys at Grandpa and Grandma’s house ready to go trick or treating. Andrew’s a dinosaur and Tommy’s a vampire bat.

Andrew really enjoyed walking up to each house and picking up the candy and putting it in his bucket. And then of course eating a few when we got back! He’s definitely a fan of Halloween! ?

Pumpkin pictures are one of our yearly traditions. Here’s last year:

And this year! What a big guy!

We also did fun activities at the pumpkin farm: