Merry Christmas!

Ramsey was a very lucky boy this Christmas. He got a big choo choo train set in the beginning of the month b/c his Dad couldn't wait to give it to him. It his hard to watch a boy beg for a choo choo train every day for a month! Another early gift was the Mickey Mouse stuffed animal. He has been obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and will not let this toy leave his sight!
From Santa: He got some play food and dishes for his kitchen. The food has a knife and can be cut in half, to keep him away from the real knives. Glow in the dark stars and moon for his ceiling, a hammer and marble toy, colored bath bubbles, the biggest container of honey you can buy, and some gummy bears.
From Grandma and Grandpa Browning 2 basketball hoops (one for the bath and one for the kitchen), some pictures and lots of clothes
From Grandma and Grandpa Hoffmann a potty and a potty book
From Sammy and Justin, a Xavier sweatshirt
From Ben and Lacey, a wooden tool box and 2 Mickey mouse books
Thanks everyone for all the gifts! He wasn't into unwrapping them, but is definitely into playing with them! And we just spent the last hour going on and off the potty until the first pee appeared in it! Ramsey earned his first potty sticker the first day having the potty!

Little Hoff #2

We're very excited to announce the expected arrival of the second Little Hoff on June 19!

20 month update

Ramsey is still a pretty good eater and loves to feed himself. He has gotten pretty good with just about anything. He likes to throw food to Stanley (which he knows he's not supposed to do) and say, "I'm funny."

He is now able to count to 12 on his own, knows colors, shapes, and knows all the letters in the alphabet very well. He is starting to learn how to count objects, too. He has also learned the difference between big and little, in and out, off and on, etc. He favorite thing right now is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This has recently replaced Elmo. He is also very fond of Thomas the Train and Whinney the Pooh. He asks for a "cho cho train" just about every day, so we are hoping he can hold out til Christmas.

One very exciting thing happened last week while Ramsey was home with Scott. He asked to go the "potty". So, Scott held him over the potty and he went! That was very much a one-time thing for now. He has mentioned the potty several times since, but won't get back on it. So, we'll have to get a Ramsey sized one to encourage him more.

Thanksgiving fun in St. George with Uncle Doug

Uncle Doug flew out from Seattle and joined us for an escape from the cold to the desert. We stayed in a little condo near St. George with gorgeous red rocks all around. We got in some climbing and mountain biking, while Ramsey tore up the desert.

The weekend started off with a proper Thanksgiving dinner. We cooked an 18 pound turkey, threw it in the truck, and brought it with us. It was accompanied by mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, cranberries, and a pumpkin pie. We wished we could have spent the holiday with more of our family and friends, but did enjoy the short get away.

Happy Halloween!

The theme for this Halloween was a bee keeper and bees; although we didn't get a picture of the bee keeper. Ramsey's evening started out with a party at the daycare, where all the kids got dressed up in their costumes. Then, he came to my work, where trick-or-treating desk to desk is an annual tradition. He got the hang of that pretty quickly and was grabbing candy by the handfuls. We even got a few "trick or treats" out of him. Then we went to his friend Ivy's neighborhood for some more trick or treating. He was so excited by this time, he was literally running from house to house. I have never seen him run so fast! He won't eat much of the candy he has, but does have a liking for suckers. He had about 4 or 5 suckers on Halloween night!

Another visit with Grammy!

We were lucky enough to have grammy come back and visit us again. Scott went to another conference in Flagstaff, so we enjoyed the company and the help! We showed Grammy the full fall Cache Valley experience. She also got to experience Ramsey started to put 2 words together. Here are some examples: Garbage can, Garbage truck, dragon fly, apple sauce, Daddy's dirt, Grammy's tea, more juice, etc.

Here we are at the Western Heritage Center where there was cow milking, goats, corn husk dolls, broom making, corn mazes, and best of all the train rides. Ramsey enjoyed the train ride the most - I think we rode it about 6 times.



And then we went in to check out the corn maze:

We also took two fall hikes. This is called cold water lake. It is a short hike in the Wellsville Mountains. We hiked up to enjoy the fall colors and have some lunch at the lake. We also did our annual cider pressing with the Waterfalls and Dowds. Ramsey was really into all the apples. We found all the apples that he would take a bite out of and put back in the bin when we were picking.

Pumpkins!

Here is Ramsey admiring some pumpkins at the Western Heritage Center. He went for a 2 yr birthday party for his friend Ivy. There were train rides, pony rides, and wagon rides. Ramsey enjoyed the train, and wasn't willing to try to the pony ride.
He has been really obsessed with pumpkins for the past week. I bought one to cook and he got so upset when it was gone, that we had to take him to the store to buy his own little pumpkin. He now carries it around the house with him repeating "pumpkin" over and over.