Birthday Party #2

The Cumpata birthday party was a success! It was great to see our Boyle cousins from Chicago and Uncle Jack from North Carolina.

With only a one hour nap under her belt Evelyn was surprisingly happy. Although she was unable to open any presents through the herd of cousins wanting to help (jk! she wasn't very interested anyways), she did enjoy all the children and her chocolate cake.

Birthday Party #1

Evelyn's party was a blast! Jared's whole family made it, the cake was beautiful (thanks Nicole!), and she was never fussy!! Success!

Hangin with cousin Brynne.


Evelyn's amazingly beautiful cakes!


She was totally in to present opening!


Sweet new shades.


The after party.

Recipe for A Wonderful Day.

You start by not going to school because both of your classes are cancelled, giving you an early start to Spring Break. Add breakfast and a 2hour nap with your baby. Mix in a 3hour outdoor extravaganza, be sure to include walking to the bank, CVS, Grandma Jill's, Grandpa Davids, and playing at the park for a good 1/2 hour. Squeeze 1 delicious burger, macaroni salad, and grilled potatoes and onions into your belly. And finish with going to bed early. There you have it, folks. This makes 1 serving of a wonderful day!!

Bedtime? Or Not...

We've been reading for about 15minutes before bed each night and it's been going so smooth! Tonight was a little different story.

We were reading a book called "Who Do You Love?" and each page has a picture of a bear with a different texture on it's tummy.* While I was reading the book Evelyn began scooting herself off of my lap towards the floor. To entertain her I started rubbing the furry part of the bear on her cheek while I was gangster rapping the words, which she found quite humorous. She was now laying on my legs, scooted almost to the floor so I started wiggling my legs around making her laugh even more. Once on the floor I proceeded to poke her while still doing my rap voice. She was getting pretty giddy. To settle down, she sat on my lap, facing me and I started to sing. She relaxed for a minute then looked up, smiling, and fish-hooked my mouth with two fingers. I kept singing, trying to ignore this and she found it hilarious. I couldn't help but start to laugh myself. That's when everything went out of control! She threw herself backwards-and no, not another injury like I'm sure some of you are thinking (Karen). She was on my lap, facing me with her upper body bent backwards, arms dangling towards the floor. I lightly tickled her armpits and she went crazy! Hysterical laughter like I've never heard from her! I continued the tickling and we were both laughing so hard! It was such a blast. Finally! I decided it was seriously bed time. We cuddled a few minutes until her heart rate came down. The entire time I was thinking, "Man, there is NO way she is going to bed tonight!" But to my surprise, after about 3minutes of cuddling I laid her in bed and she rolled to her side (her sleep position) and I never heard a peep out of her. It was amazing! I don't know how I got so lucky.

*The book talks about loving your mom, dad, grandma, brother and sister. But my Aunt Lori, who gave Evelyn the book, crossed out brother and sister and wrote Great Uncle John and Great Aunt Lor Lor. (Just wanted to throw that in, cute idea!)

Ev's First Spaghetti Dinner (Don't Miss 2 New Posts Below-Important!)

Boy, did she love spaghetti! She ate like she'd never eaten in her life. It was so much fun watching her try to get the noodles in her mouth. She had one heck of a time!






Afterwards, it was back to dress up!


(I ADDED PICS TO THE POST "MONKEY" IF YOU'RE INTERESTED)

Just A Few Pics

A friend of ours has a son 2 weeks older than Evelyn, named Arlo-so cute, and we attended his birthday party this weekend. When we arrived, Evelyn gave him a hug then he pulled back, looked at her, and ripped the bow out of her hair.



Sunday we stayed home all day and had a visit from Jared's great-grandpa, Ivan.




My little diva :)

Our First Boo-Boo

Evelyn loves to dance, as we all know. She recently has seen The Fresh Beat Band jumping around and decided she should try, too. So she's been jumping. She just kind of pushes her weight up and onto her tippy-toes. It's pretty cute.

Friday we were getting ready to go to the doctor for a check-up and I was in my room getting dressed when I heard Evelyn begin to cry. I went in her room and she was sitting on the floor by her rocking chair. I picked her up to comfort her and the crying stopped in a few short seconds. After a few minutes I realized there was a quarter size red knot on the right side of her head that looked pretty painful so I immediately dosed her with some Tylenol. I brought it to the nurse's attention at the doctors office and she said Evelyn should be fine. While we wait in our room at the doctor Evelyn likes to walk around and talk, hearing herself echo. She was having a blast until she decided to try and jump again. This time she fell hitting her face on the corner leg of a chair. It immediately swelled up and turned purple and the skin came so close to splitting. She was hysterical and it looked so painful! She cried for quite some time but the doctor said not to worry. He said it will swell and she may have a black eye but she will be fine. Well, he was right!

Right after the second fall:


Her black eye the next day:

Monkey

Evelyn woke up this morning an hour early giving us plenty of time to take a much needed bath. After breakfast, I stripped her down and let her run around in the nude as I usually do while getting her bath ready. She was suspiciously quiet when I came out of the bathroom to retrieve her. I found her sitting on the living room floor rubbing her fingers into the rug and carpet. I saw a pile at her feet and thought, "Oh no, she threw up!" But, no. It was poop. A big pile of poop! She was rubbing it into the carpet and rug, she had finger smears of it on her legs, some in her hair. She also had a pull out piece from a book that was stuck to her hand with poop. When I stood her up she tried to run away leaving several poopy baby footprints ground into my carpet. After a quick clean using baby wipes and some vigorous scrubbing of my living room carpet we finally made it to the bath. She gave a whole new meaning to her one of her nicknames, Monkey.

Caught red-handed!


Scene of the crime...it looked worse in person.


All clean :)

Cuddle Bug

This morning Evelyn woke up a little early with a whiney cry. Jared got up to change her diaper and she clearly didn't want to go back to bed so he brought her in our room. She looked at me with a big smile and when Jared handed her over she laid her head down on me to snuggle. She stayed this way for quite a while. Pure heaven. She rarely sits still long enough to cuddle so I really enjoy these little moments we share.

**

Yesterday we attended a luncheon at a banquet hall right across the street from our house. A friend of ours has a daughter, Myla, 9months older than Evelyn who also attended. Evelyn loved the open space, running in giant circles for almost an hour! Myla was chasing her yelling, "baby!". They had so much fun. After every couple laps Evelyn would stop to give Myla a hug and a kiss or say "HI!" to a passer by. She had such a good time. I love seeing her play with other kids, but it seems too soon. She's only 1! Well, 2 according to her. She's aging quickly.

Music Lessons (2other new posts below this)

At a recent visit to Grandma and Grandpas Evelyn found her inner Beethoven.



And Grandma Nancy has found her inner Neal Pert...





Also, here is the Evelyn's creepy, cock-eyed babydoll that she plays with at my moms.

There's A Head In My Bucket, Dear Liza

So, my parents bought Evelyn some blocks and, although she CAN stack them, she prefers to play with the bucket they came in. Quite interesting....

Big Girl

I haven't been able to figure out how to upload my pics on my new computer so I haven't been blogging like I used to. Which is ironic since this has been a very progressive few weeks in Evelyn's life.

In one week (about 2 weeks ago) we have gone from 2bottles of formula and 2bottles of breastmilk to all formula. Also in this week we have gone cold turkey from a bottle to a sippy cup! She has learned several new words including cat, up & down (while moving her arms accordingly), too too (choo choo), papa, block and, for some reason, when you ask her how old she is she happily replies with two fingers in the air, "two!". Speaking of blocks, my parents taught Evelyn to stack blocks and she can stack a tower of four blocks. Our pediatrician saw this and smiled saying, "She is one of my most brilliant babies," which is very exciting coming from his high standards.

Our final step to being a big girl is solely eating table food. When first introduced, she had a hard time with meat and when she felt she had had enough to eat she would gag herself and throw up (I think that was just a one week phase, thank goodness!) She now eats strictly table food and is loving it! Last night we went to a cheap, delicious chicken place in town and she ate fried chicken like she'd never eaten in her life! She loved it! For breakfast we usually eat eggs, toast or a muffin with strawberries or grapes. Today we're having cinnamon rolls for the first time! She loves being one of us and is quite a good eater. It's so nice not having to spend the first half of dinner feeding her.

Last night at dinner I realized just how much of a big girls he is. There were a few other kids running around that were probably 2, 4, and 7. Evelyn joined right in and played with them all night. It felt too soon! She's such a big girl already.