Evie Turns 1!!!

I know we've been missing for a while, and I have so much to catch up on, but what better place to start than with Evie's first birthday?  We celebrated December 2-4 with family and friends in Clovis.  Edie, Grandad, Grammy, Pops, Papaw, and Aunt Andrea all came out for the festivities!  Evie had a joint birthday party with her BFF Sophia, who is two days older than she is.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

 Having some fun with Edie on her birthday morning.  What a chunk!

 Where is Grandad's nose?

 The fabulous cake!  Made by a fellow USAF wife.

 Mommy and the birthday girl are ready to par-tay!

  A quick pre-party snuggle with Grammy, Pops, and Aunt Andrea

 She loves her Daddy!

 Sliding with Edie on her present from Mom and Dad

 It's my party (and my bedtime) and I'll be pooped if I want to!

 Smash cake

 Mom and BG again post cake

 Loving some Edie Sunday morning (Gifts had to be pushed until Sunday due to a total post-party meltdown).

 I could get used to this!

 Fun times with new toys!

What do you get a baby Baylor Bear?  Not a rocking horse, but a rocking BEAR, of course!

More posts to come from Baylor Homecoming and beyond, but I hope this will tide you over.

Happy Halloween

Evie had a great time trick-or-treating last night!  We just went to a few of our friends' houses, but Evie loved it!  She especially enjoyed seeing the other kiddos in costume and all the decorations.

 Here's our little bumblebee all ready for action!

 We let her walk a lot of the way, which she loved.

Love seeing her so happy!

Snow Day Fun!

On Thursday, October 27th we had a snow day!  Evie mostly had fun looking at the snow through the windows all day, but Dad came home early from work to build a snow man with her.  As you can see, they had a blast!

 Fin loved jumping up for a snow "ball"

 No, E doesn't have snow boots yet so yes, we covered her feet with ziplocs.

 Whoa, what's this big white thing?

 Not so sure about the snowman.

 More playtime with Fin and Dad.

 Now she's happy!

 Really happy

 Fin and Dad with the finished product

Believe it or not, Mr. Snowman's bottom third is still intact, in the backyard, today.

Spouse Flight/Fall Festival

Saturday morning I got to participate in the spouse flights here on base!  I got to go up in a C-130, and even got to be in the cockpit while we landed.  They also had a static display of some of our planes for families to tour.

 Ready to go!

 Our plane

 Unusual point of entry

 Family Pred shot

 Evie and Dad going into the Osprey

Evie loved the exposed wires!

Dog Walker

Today Evie insisted on holding Finlay's leash for our entire walk. She actually did a great job!


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A Philippians 4:8 Kind of Day

**Disclaimer:  This post is really self-indulgent, and more of a vent than anything else.  It has almost nothing to do with my cute baby girl so feel free to skip it!

Today was one of those days that really make my hate living in Clovis.  Normally, it is a daily struggle to find the positives about living here, but I can often do it.  I do try HARD to have a good attitude.  Some days my efforts are more effective than others.  Here's how today went.

I woke up this morning to nice temperatures.  Sweet!  Decided that E and I should take a walk around the neighborhood.  This wasn't too bad until the sustained winds of 25+ mph (not unusual here) blowing in Evie's face made her cry.  Walk fail.

This afternoon, following lunch and naptime I decided to go to the family room at the base gym and learn how to use the weight machine in there.  When I got there there were 4 other moms and their 5 kids already in there.  One mom stood in front of the weight machine, blocking access to it, talking to another mom for about 10 minutes so I decided to do a quick warm-up on the eliptical.  No big deal.  I put Evie into the big enclosed play area with the other kids, ages 1-5ish, and went about my business.  Evie was having a good time until a 4 year old little girl started yelling at her not to take her toy (which she wasn't even trying to do).  That little girl's mom calmly said to her daughter, "don't yell at the baby," and went back to working out.

 I considered packing it in right then, but the kids started playing nicely again so I decided to wait it out, thinking that surely the weight machine would open up soon.  Well, I was WRONG!  The mom who had been standing in front of the weight machine talking started to actually use the machine.  Ugh.  About that time, as my frustration was beginning to peak, the 4 year old girl started to push Evie, who was just crawling around close to that girl and another 4 years old.  I called out to her, "play nicely with the baby, please!"  The girl's mother did nothing.

The chatty mom finished with the weight machine, and I was about to start using it when she pulled over an exercise ball, again blocking access to the machine, and started doing crunches on it!  I decided to wait 5 more minutes to see if she would finish.  At that point, a 5 year old little boy started sitting on another big exercise ball, and rolled it into Evie, who was sitting nearby.  I said loudly, "look out for the baby!"  The boy looked at me, and kept doing it while his mom yet again observed but did nothing. 

At that point I went over, grabbed Evie and said to her, "let's go ahead and get you out of here.  It's just a little too hazardous for you in here with these big kids!"  I will have you know that the mother of the two troublemakers did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! 

Watching your two kids, who are absolutely old enough to know better and to be disciplined, be mean and play roughly with my 10 month old and doing nothing about it is absolutely not okay.  However, this mother was clearly young (probably 8-10 years younger than I am) and I just didn't feel like I could say anything to her without seeming really condescending.  So I just left.  Steaming.

I headed on over to Albertsons because I needed some almond butter for a recipe tonight. On the way there my car was battling winds that are now gusting at 45 mph, and dodging, I kid you not, huge tumbleweeds.  It looked like a scene from an old western movie.  And wouldn't you know, they didn't even have almond butter at Albertsons.  I had to go to the health food store to buy it.  Typical Clovis.

As we got in the car to head home, I found myself yelling, ranting, to no one, about how much I hate it here, and then Evie started to cry.  I about lost it.  And then I remembered my Bible study lesson from yesterday - Philippians 4:8.    I found myself chanting "Finally, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things."

This verse has a special meaning to me aside from being from a recent Bible study, and I love that I have it memorized.  While I may not have been able to stick to its imperative today 100%, I'm glad that it was there, in the back of my mind, to remind me of the way I'm called to act as a Christian mom.

So I promise to try even harder to have a good attitude tomorrow. 

Evie: 10 Months

I can't believe it's already time for another monthly post.  Time continues to fly by!  Here's the info on Evie at 10 months.

Sleeping:  Evie sleeps 12 hours at night and still wakes up once to eat, usually between 3 and 5am.  I am ready for this to end!  She is still following the same nap schedule, with 2 naps of about 30 minutes each during the day.  She goes down for her naps fine, and wakes up happy and smiling, wide awake, 30 minutes later.  Ugh.

Eating:  Evie eats 3 meals and 1-2 snacks each day.  She can feed herself Cheerios, but still mostly eats purees.  She keeps adding new foods, and will pretty much eat anything.  Any vegetables that she won't eat, we just mix in with some cheese, and she loves them!  Evie also still nurses 4-5 times each day. 

Words:  Evie says "mama" for me and, less frequently, "da" or "dada" for her dad.  She was saying dada more until Nick left for about a week and a half this month.  She also says "bye bye" and sometimes will say "hi" if we say it first.  She loves to wave when she does this!  She uses bye bye for anytime she wants to end something like eating a meal, being in her playpen or exersaucer, etc.  It's like her version of "okay, I'm done with that."  She has also started handing us things and saying, with a sincere and focused expression, "bow."  I don't know what she's getting at, but she means something!  Evie says "uh-oh" when she drops something on the floor, like Cheerios or her water cup.

**After I had written this post this afternoon, but before I published it, Evie said to Nicholas "Hi Dada" when he came home from work.  In case we doubted what she meant, she said it again about 30 seconds later, waving and smiling at her Daddy.  I guess that was her first sentence?!

The big news this month is that Evie started walking!  She took her first two steps on Sunday, September 25th while cruising between the couch and the ottoman, holding onto a little yellow chick toy.  As of today, she is up to taking 5 or 6 consecutive steps before falling down.  She is really loving being more mobile!  (She is also able to stand up well on her own).

Evie's favorite toys these days are push-toys.  She also loves board books, but is more interested in eating them than reading them.  Evie likes to play the uh-oh game, wherein she drops a toy or her water cup, and says "uh-oh" and waits for us to pick it up.  She especially like to do this while we are eating dinner and she is in her high chair, and while she and I are out at the grocery store. 

She loves to be out and about!  She is much happier when we are running errands or on a walk than just sitting at home.  When we are in public places she loves to flirt with the other people around us by smiling, laughing, and jabbering baby gibberish with them.  She has adjusted well to going to a babysitter during my weekly bible study, which is a huge blessing!  My small group is for nursing mothers so she is always welcome with us, but it is so nice for me to have a little break while knowing she is happy and well cared-for.  She is also able to play in a little children's area in the "family exercise room" at the base gym.  This is a great set-up because I can watch her while I run on the treadmill or use the eliptical.  She really enjoys it so I don't have to feel too guilty about getting back into an exercise routine.  Finally!

One negative is that Evie has really started throwing tantrums. When something doesn't go her way, her whole body stiffens up, and she starts to cry - hard - with real tears. It is so sad! But I know that giving in to her tantrums now will mean big trouble later on so I try to stick to my guns, especially on the important things, like not playing with outlets.
She is still in size 3 diapers, and wears either 9 or 12 month size clothes.

 Labor Day at the park

 Walking practice with Dad

 This face melts my heart

 So jealous of those lush lashes!

 Daddy adores her.  The feeling is mutual.

 Contemplating her next move

 Fun times with Dad - chasing Funlay around the park

 Edie came to visit!

 Typical Evie pic - always moving.

 Loving her new red wagon from Edie and Grandad

Standing by herself!

Laughing Girl

Evie loves to play with her monitor, and when Daddy gets in on the act it's even more fun!

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Bye-Bye

Evie now says "bye-bye" and waves. This totally caught me off-guard the other day! She now likes to do it all the time and waves much bigger than she does here. What a silly kid!

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9 Month Update

Here are a few updates on Evie at 9 months.  We had her check-up this morning, and here are her stats:

Height:  27 inches (20%)
Weight:  19 1/4 lbs (50%)
Head circumference:  44 cm

Her small stature means that I have to wait to wean her at night, but her doctor thinks that she is actually meant to be a bit shorter, and her height is just normalizing back to the percentile that she was in for her first 4 or 5 months.  The height/weight differential explains her chubby tummy too!

One thing I forgot to put in her 9 month post is that Evie is signing!  She signs for "eat" and she signs for "milk."  This way when she is hungry a) we know and b) we know if she wants food or to nurse.  It's pretty handy I must say!

9 Months Old

Busy, busy, busy!  That describes Evie at 9 months perfectly.  Here's the rundown on her current routine.

Eating:  she continues to add to her diet with new foods every 3 to 4 days.  She loves fruit, yogurt, any orange vegetable, and peas.  She is not crazy about broccoli, cauliflower, meat, or potatoes.  We're now trying to work on feeding herself with finger foods like puffs, cheerios, mushy pieces of fruit or avocado, and most recently pieces of cheese.

Sleeping:  some days are better than others.  She's still not a big napper...about once or twice each week she will have a days where she will nap a total of 1-2 hours, but most of the time it is a grand total of 1 hour or less from two combined naps.  Ugh.  She wakes once in the wee hours to nurse, unless her teething is really painful.  Then she wakes twice in the night. 

Teeth:  still just the two on the bottom, but she's working on the top right one. 

Hair:  She's up to a total of 4 haircuts, and she needs another for her bangs.  I'm thinking about letting it grow out a bit, though, as I don't really want her to have the chunky baby bangs she is currently sporting.  Who'd have thought her hair would be such an issue?

Play, etc:  Evie loves to cruise around and explore.  She likes to take things off shelves and out of baskets.  She will pull up on anything, and barely needs help to stand and balance.  She can walk well holding onto fingers and sort of well with her push toy.  If I move out of her sight, she will immediately come find me, and is very pleased with herself when she does.  She gets a real kick out of doing things that are off-limits like touching (safety plugged) outlets or pieces of furniture she's not supposed to.  She will look back and smile as she does it because she loves to see us say no and make a serious face.  Fun times to come, I'm sure.  She can play catch with Nick and her big ball.  He will roll it to her, she will catch it, and then drop it hard enough on the ground so that it rolls back to him.  I can now take her to the gym with me, put her in the pack n play or the little gated baby area, and get in 30 minutes on the eliptical.  Hallelujah! 

As far as verbal stuff, she sometimes uses mama and dada descriminately, but she generally loves to babble, and does so emphatically.  It is hilarious!

During the day she does NOT want to stop moving and playing.  She does not like to sit and cuddle or read books, and she could not care less about the TV.  She gets quickly frustrated when confined to her play yard or exersaucer. As you can imagine, this makes getting pictures of her a challenge.  Here are a few that I've taken over the past few days, doing some of her typical activities.  Enjoy!

 Pulling up on the ottoman, always a good time.

This is so typical.  Mom wants to cuddle and take a picture.  Evie is not having it!

 We call this look "serious baby."  She makes it a lot.

 She also makes this face all the time.

 Seriously, Mom, get this camera out of my face!

 Some early morning cruising around the living room.

 Loves playing with her new megaphone.

 What's he saying?

 Spends lots of time looking out the back door.

 Pulling books off the hall bookshelf.  Is she trying to tell me something?

 Water bottles - all time favorite toy.

 Cruising along the entertainment center to her next destination.

 Time for a diaper change (Dad is doing this one while Mom documents).  She rebels against these at all costs!

 A little happier holding her hairbrush.

 Loves Finlay.

 They are so sweet to each other.

 What can I pull up on now?  Maybe this laundry basket.

I'm coming to get  you!

By the way, the temps here are in the 60's today, hence our long sleeves.  Yeah, be jealous. 

Happy 9 months big girl!  I can't wait to see what the next month brings!