Santa brought it!

I will try and load up some fun Evie videos later but can't get them to play right on the computer here. We had a fun Christmas Evie and a very nice Christmas. It was definitely nice having an alert, aware (and awake the enter time) baby to do presents with.

We went to church on Christmas Eve with Grandma. Evie had no patience for the service but greatly enjoyed chasing and playing with another little girl, Hudson, and crawling through Hudson's dad's legs (slightly embarrassing but he said it was ok). Afterwards we joined up with Uncle Carl and Aunt Reagon. Evie got a baby doll, books and tons of clothes while we were there. She had a lot of fun and really liked her special Christmas Evie nightgown:The next morning she woke up to her special surprise from Santa: a play kitchen! She kept saying 'Santa brought it' and 'I making food!' and 'cut it'. She was really into trying to cut the fake food apart with the fake knife.
Next, Nana and Grandpa came to over and brought her the Bitty Baby twins and stroller, as well as tons of clothes, books and toys. Here she is in just a shirt and some cute bunny shoes she decided she had to wear right away with the babies:After opening all of these items and taking a much needed nap (while the rest of us played a cool new game, Life Twists and Turns), we went to great-grandma's house. Evie was a little low on present-opening steam by this point, but she continued to get more fun stuff including a table and chairs set she can use after she makes meals in her kitchen. She also got an aquadoodle which she really liked but we had to take it away because she was putting the pen in her mouth.Before we left for great-grandma's house, Evie got all excited and started talking about how she wanted to get dressed and put her coat on so we could go 'shopping at the store'. She brought it up over and over and over again--we have no idea what prompted that. The day after Christmas she was insisting on going shopping again, so we stopped so daddy could spend a gift card and Evie and I got surprises for some other folks we know:)

It just seems crazy to me how much Evie knows--like talking about making food in her kitchen (with no prompting) and the whole store thing. She also brushed her baby's teeth and was generally just fun!

The only other thing that happened recently is Evie got some really bad hives on Saturday--we're not sure if they were from a bad food (milk) exposure or a late reaction to the penicillin she was on for her ear infection but one diaper change she was fine and the next her torso was covered in hives. Then on Sunday while visiting the Fishes (Luke and Allison are so cute!) the hives started to look worse again and on Monday morning they were terrible--there were hives on top of hives and her entire stomach was just one big, nasty hive. She seemed completely unaffected by them but it made me itchy just looking! We're still not sure what caused this, but I am leaning towards the penicillin causing a reaction after reading through a medical book we have called 'Your Child's Health'. A rash from the 'cillin usually only occurs on the torso (her butt, arms and legs were pretty much clear) and can also occur on the face--she did have a few small hives on her face Monday but it was weird how some large areas of her body had absolutely no hives on them. She also didn't have any other food allergy symptoms...who knows though?

SNOW!

Yesterday was a mess of snow in Columbus. It started as we were leaving Plain City after breakfast and didn't stop until it turned into sleet/rain which lasted well past when I went to bed.

I ran to the grocery store to pick up some needed prescriptions and things and got pretty far stuck in a ditch off Polaris Parkway on the way home. It sucked. After about 30 minutes I got myself out off there by backing quickly and doing some fancy steering, but it was pretty awful. I don't want to drive in snow ever again:)

After getting home, daddy decided to shovel and Evie and I went out to play in the snow. She was not at all happy about getting into her snow gear on but she loved playing in the snow and was equally upset when I brought her in and took her snow gear off. She also was a big fan of eating the snow--we've had the 'don't eat yellow snow' conversation a few times but I am pretty sure she doesn't get it. Here she is:

Popular Baby Names

http://babynames.com/Names/Popular/

So who knew that Ava was going to be the #1 most popular name for girls in 2007? I know 2 families with a baby Ava--do you know anyone who used this name?

As for Aiden, Jaden, Caden, Hayden, etc. I saw that one coming over a year ago. I can't count on one hand the number of people I've run into with kids who have this type of name. So how are other baby names of friends fairing (#s are for 2007 unless otherwise noted)?

Eva (closest): from #41 in '06 to #51 in '07
Alanna: #35
Allison: didn't make the top 100 in US in 2006, #31 2007
Andrew: #21
Glenn: didn't make the top 100 list
Julia: #93
Catherine (Katie): #71 in 2007
Lilly (closest to Lilah): #98 in 2006, #12 in 2007
Luke: #46
William: #32

So now you know. If you want a popular name there are plenty to choose from and even if you aren't going for a popular name (as we weren't) a very similar variation of it could end up being #1 next year!

Evie Moments

It has been incredibly busy lately. Evie is learning how to jump and run and climb and has a vocabulary that is growing every day. Except for calling every color green and every ball blue she really seems to be getting the hang of all of this.

Some fun Evie moments when Evie:

• decided to wear her swimsuit over her regular clothes
• wore pjs to the store one day (after we convinced her that 2.5 pairs of jammies and some spankies from a dress were too much)
• wore her princess hat all during lunch at Ruby Tuesdays because she thought it was cooler that way.
• yelled out yeah at church into the silence after the choir's big song--everyone laughed and the minister said, "I say yeah too!"
• sings and dances to Christmas and other songs. She seems to be a big fan of 80's rock.
• tried to ride Emma like she was a horse.
• played with Drew, gave him kisses and posed:).

Photo evidence below:)

Halloween to now

Evie was Tinkerbell for Haunt the Halls when we trick-or-treated in the residence halls at OSU. Here she is with cousin Melissa in Siebert:
The following day (on actual Halloween) she was a spider. She loves her spider costume (with pink bow here to try and help people figure out gender). She has asked us to put it on her many times since Halloween--I had to hide it yesterday!Her hair is now long enough to do pigtails in the back. Here she is yesterday in her cheerleading outfit and lucky socks. Needless to say we no longer feel the socks are lucky, but the hair is cute!
Evie has really been into my dancing hamsters lately. I will try and figure out how to get video on here so you can see her dancing to 'Tequila'. Slightly inappropriate, but she loves it!

She has had a bad stomach virus for the past few days including lots of early morning bed clean-up. Hopefully we won't catch it and she will get better soon. What a way to spend a 3 day weekend (or 4 since we split time off on Friday to stay home with her).

I also forgot her stats from last doctor appointment. At the time she was:

• 32 and 3/4 inches tall: 90%
• 24 lbs: 40%--but on Friday she was 24.5 lbs.
• Her head is still enormous: 97% at 19 and 1/4 inches

Evie also said her first 'real' sentence this week. When looking at her animal sheets on her bed she looked over at me and said: 'This is a lion' and pointed to one of the lions on the sheets. Pretty nifty.

Finally Slowing Down

Life has been super busy, but is finally slowing down a little, which is a welcome change of pace. This Saturday was the first Saturday in since the last weekend in September that I was in town. For real:)

I have had the uber plague head cold now turned sinus infection but seem to be on the mend now. Evie was running a fever late Sunday but whatever that was all about seems to have been very short-lived. Max, of course, has not been sick at all. Grandma is recovering well from surgery and we hope to hang out with her tomorrow--since I have been sick we haven't been over much.

Last weekend we went to Norwalk Ohio for Andrew Fay's baptism. I was one of his sponsors and he did really good during the ceremony--didn't cry at all (unlike the shenanigans of the Juner a year ago this time). Here we are afterwards:
Evie was not a fan of sharing mommy, but she did alright...except for screaming with daddy in the church play room during the service. We also finally got Evie a halloween costume(s)...one if very girlie and fun--Tinkerbell:The other is super cute, warm and cuddly...if you like spiders that is!We went to Glenn's 2nd annual Halloween party and did a mini-parade (see above) so folks could see the costumes.

What have we been up to for the past month?

Well, it has been quite a lot. Evie started at OSU daycare two weeks ago and things are going well so far. They are being really responsible about her milk allergy and we hope to have no further problems. The other little kids in the room seem really nice too.

Mommy is teaching a class at Newark Thursday evenings, so that keeps life extra busy. Grandma V just had surgery on her neck to fuse it together and remove some bone spurs and she is recovering pretty well.

The last weekend in September, we went to Hocking Hills with Nana and Grandpa. We had a great time hiking, pumpkin picking and letter-boxing. It was a perfect weekend for being out in the country.
The first weekend in October, mommy and Beth and Carrie (plus Mo and her sister Christina), went to Berlin Oh/Amish Country for their annual shop, eat and relax weekend. We had a lot of fun and ate a ton of good food!

This weekend, we went to Randy and Heather's wedding--it was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. Heather looked fantastic--just like a princess. Evie kept running around just so she could stare at her in her pretty dress. She also had fun with Abby, Katie and Allison.

Evie and Abby.

Evie now has four molars (her first on both sides and top and bottom). We went today for her 18 month pictures. She was super crabby but they actually turned out pretty good in spite of that. You'll see in two weeks:)

Potty Time

Evie has been very curious about the potty recently and wanting to be held sitting on it so we got her one for her very own today. We took her to the store and she selected the 1-2-3 Elmo Potty. It was the only one she couldn't completely disassemble within seconds because the 'catch' basin is under the seat. While it is convenient for that basin to be on top for cleaning, Evie just wanted to rip the seats apart and look inside.

We brought it home and she wanted to sit on it and kept saying poopie, so we sat her on it with no pants on and lo and behold--she peed in it! So yipee for first potty attempt. She still doesn't quite get warning us about getting on the potty before she goes, but we thought that was pretty awesome that she's done her business in it already!

We're not trying to 'train' her too much, just making it available when she asks.

Did someone say busy?

It's that time of year right before school starts when things go from crazy to ultra crazy. I finished my 3 week class at Newark this week. I am teaching the same class one evening a week during fall quarter (assigned to a room with 21 chairs and there are 25 students, and they said it would work?) so we'll see if that makes for a calmer experience.

We have all had a cold this week running from missing a whole to a part day of work which is terrible timing. I think we're mostly recovered from the missed time though.

Evie has a ton of teeth coming in, including several molars. She has one that is sooo swollen and painful looking and has been hovering there in swollen awfulness for weeks but she seems to be taking it like a champ. Fingers crossed that it comes out and makes an appearance soon!

We met with daycare to discuss the bad happenings and got things pretty much worked out there for now. We also met with OSU and talked to the teachers in the actual room Evie would be in and it does make a difference knowing who would be caring for her. Their plan for working with Evie and willingness to jump in with new ideas was really good to see. All things considered, we plan to start her there in two weeks. It was still a hard decision to make, and I hate the idea of Evie not seeing her current friends again (and her 'boyfriends') but I know she won't remember a few months from now. I just hope she has a decent transition because she can definitely be a diva and (don't tell her: brat) when she isn't happy about something. The other nice thing is all the full-time teachers are CPR/1st Aid trained as are most of the teaching assistants and they also do epi pen training with everyone. The ratios are 2 teachers for every ten kids plus they seem to have lots of extra coverage so keeping an eye on meal time will hopefully go ok. OSU also just turned into a nut-free facility, so I know food allergy awareness is at the forefront right now, which is where we need it to be. Too bad you can't make a child care center dairy free, right.

They also do care plans before your child starts which is cool, so we will actually meet and sit down to talk about our expectations and come up with a kind of contract it sounds like. The room seems really diverse and Evie will be one of the younger ones, but I bet she won't be behind with her sassy mouth and motor skills!

Funny Evie moment of the week: at grandma's house, Evie took her doll into the bathroom (toilet seat was down), put the baby on the toilet, said "baby potty" and then tried to flush. Her other funny moment was when she discovered the spots on her chest and started calling them boobies and tried to pull my shirt up for comparison purposes. Kids just don't know about naked time being taboo, do they?

Awesome Evie moment of the week: she said 'I love you' to me on the phone while I was driving home from class. Evie has also started to tell us when she needs her diaper changed so no more parental investigations needed!

Keep your fingers crossed for us in two weeks!

Busy as always

This past week was busy, per usual. Evie seems fully recovered from allergy stuff, daddy had a good birthday and visit from his friend Mike F and the buckeyes won their first game handily while U Mich lost badly! I was also really proud of Evie because she shared her toys well with everyone. The girls look so cute in their outfits, and now we have a boy in our midst--William Robert who is such a cutie! Congrats again to Mike and Mo--fastest labor with no drugs and still a great big smile on her face--you rock! He is going to be mother-henned to death by the girls, poor kid!
We did a day trip to Indiana to visit family last Sunday. Evie had fun with her cousins and in their pool. Mommy and Evie had to borrow swimsuits for the pool so we look a little silly but she LOVED it. I had to pry her out of there.Otherwise, I am teaching a class at Newark right now that lasts 3 weeks and we're both working hard before school starts up in 1.5 weeks! After the allergy scares last week I called OSU daycare and asked if we could have that spot we turned down back, and they do have a space for Evie if we want it. We are checking it out on Thursday. I don't want to move her to somewhere that won't be any better than where we are now, and accidents can happen any place, but overall I would feel much better if she is closer to us (OSU is 5 minutes away, instead of 20 like she is now) and closer to a hospital if that should ever be necessary. OSU also requires all staff to complete first aid, which could work in our favor too. I want to check it out first, but if the room they can put her in isn't full of morons, we may go for it.

Evie has something like 5 teeth coming in right now. One of her molars is super swollen and causing her a lot of grief but she is mostly taking it in stride. She has also started telling on herself--when she does something she isn't supposed to do--like stand on a chair or toy, she yells 'sit down' and then laughs and keeps doing it anyway. She is a pip. Obviously, we're working on that.

I also forgot--Evie had a follow-up appointment with her doctor on Thursday. She didn't want to get weighed but since she has also been weighed recently at ER she is somewhere between 23 lbs 8 ounces and 23 lbs 14 ounces. She is a little over 33 inches tall. She's a monster:) Because Evie did indeed have the beginnings of an anaphylactic reaction at daycare, it is extremely unlikely that she will outgrow her milk allergy:(. Good thing she likes soy cheese, milk and yogurt!

Totally BAD

So for those of you who read about Wednesday's fiasco (see Oops below), get ready for the real horror of the week.

Daycare called again today. Apparently taking my advice they have Evie and one other child with a milk allergy sitting at a table by themselves. While eating lunch the teacher noticed that Evie's eyes were getting red and watery and then a few minutes later she broke out in hives and her other eye swelled up this time but it was worse than last time. This time she was having difficulty swallowing and was drooling on herself so her doctor's office said use the epi pen and take her to the ER, which we did. The epi pen was amazing and allowed her to get back to normal in seconds but did start to wear off as we waited at the ER.

Once we got to Children's ER they gave her steroids and some benadryl to try and continue to positive effects of the epi and prevent a replapse. We also had to stay there for several hours to make sure nothing more severe happened when the epi did wear off (usually wears off in 4 hours or less). She had a really rotten afternoon, as you can guess.

This time, daycare gave her a canned 'graduates' meal that we gave them that definitely does not contain milk/milk products. They also initially said they gave her mixed fruit and mixed veggies with margarine on them. For those of you who don't know margarine does have milk in it. When we first found out about Evie's allergy, I also thought margarine didn't have milk in it (although I read the ingredients BEFORE serving her anything with margarine) so I can kind of understand not knowing that. However, a little while later daycare called and said that Evie had not actually gotten her plate of veggies and fruit before this incident occurred which leaves us with only a few options:

1. Evie is allergic to something in the food she did eat that she has never had a reaction to before
2. Evie stole some food from the other little kid
3. Evie got some real milk in her soy-milk only sippy cup
4. margarine got on her plate or food off someone else's hands who touched the margarine and then her stuff (good gravy, I hope not because then she will never be 'safe' if it is a really severe contact allergy)
5. they got confused or fibbed in the chaos and Evie was given veggies with margarine

Evie has been eating their veggies for months now with no reaction but this was her first dose of them after having a serious reaction to that cheese pizza she got a hold of (and since she was wearing a white skirt that day and it has pizza sauce ALL over it, she probably ate more than just a bite--apparently the teacher was a sub/floater who didn't review the class allergens list?!?!!?). Anyway, her body probably hadn't cleansed that milk out letting even a little dab cause an even worse reaction.

So my friends, THIS is actually worse than my last post in which I said my worst fear was realized. When the allergist gave me the epi pens he was like 'you should never have to use these but I'll give them to you anyway just as a matter of procedure'. She had two bad reactions in 2 days resulting in one trip to the ER and lots of medication, not to mention chaos and missed work for mommy and daddy and stress on everyone.

I honestly don't know what to do. With a child who has a serious allergy like this I don't want to just start over somewhere new, because most likely any school that even has an opening right now for her is either ridiculously expensive or not great (otherwise other people would be using it). I also still mostly-trust most of the people where she is, so it's kind of better the devil you know than the one that you don't. HOWEVER, I can't handle this kind of stress and fear. What happened today was really serious, vastly more so than what happened Wednesday and I don't know what we'll do. I do believe in my heart that no one thought they were giving her milk/dairy, but if they aren't able to keep track of what has dairy in it, that won't be enough. It's just not very feasible to switch daycares with little or no notice. I'm so worn out from this I can't even be properly pissed off right now.

In other news, Evie still has two teeth coming in--they made an appearance about 2 weeks ago and haven't done much since. That will bring her grand total up to: 6 whole teeth. She also has her new mary jane styled crocs with OSU jibbits all ready for the game tomorrow.

Happy slightly (by one hour) early birthday daddy and Laurie!

Big Oops

The thing I have been fearing most at daycare with Evie's move to a new room (where they sit at table and all eat together--no high chairs to keep them separated) happened yesterday at lunch. Evie got a hold of something, probably cheese pizza since that was the meal for the day. However, no one saw exactly what happened (which may be more aggravating than the fact that she ate the cheese in the first place) so we can't be 100% sure but it seems very likely.

The end result was Evie swelling up like a marshmallow afterwards and getting red and blotchy with a rash and hives. When daycare called she apparently looked really scary horrid, but they gave her Benadryl so she looked slightly less horrific when I got there to pick her up. Here she is with still swollen partway shut eye:
I think this picture looks bad but it looked even worse in person, and I'm not just saying that. It really did look weirder and more horrible in the flesh. So the bad news is that Evie ate milk something or other and had a bad reaction to it (duh, that's why we emphasize that she is milk allergic!) but the good news is I think daycare will probably not make this mistake again. I am not sure if folks didn't 100% believe me that she has a SEVERE allergy or what, but she really does have a very serious allergy which we also need to take seriously. Most of the time when I tell people she is allergic to milk they assume I mean lactose intolerant or something more mundane. This doesn't look too mundane though, does it.

It really stinks to take your child in healthy and have her returned to you looking like that, particularly since I think this was perfectly avoidable. Yeah, she may catch the flu or get bit by some kid or even punched in the noggin' and those things happen, but she should not have access to stuff that could cause this kind of a reaction. Hopefully we can go a while before something like this happens again (or never have it happen again would be perfect). Ok, enough of that rant!

So after getting Evie home, I went to send a quick email to co-workers to let them know Evie was fine (after dashing out in a hurry) and while doing this, Evie:

• opened the back door
• walked down the steps of the deck
• ran into the yard and picked up a wood chip which she was thinking about eating...

as I ran out the door having my second heart attack of the day. I cannot believe how fearless she is. Note to self--always lock back door so Evie cannot open it--ALWAYS! It's like you always here too--I just had my back turned for a second (a minute or less) and that's when something always happens. This incident however left her unharmed and un-disfigured so that's something anyway.

Otherwise we are SOSO here. Evie has a pretty extensive vocabulary, including talking about Liam all the time (a boy in her class who gets into lots of trouble). She is also the teachers helper in telling the other kids 'No' and she has taught her classmates the word 'hot'. She loves frozen waffles for breakfast (dairy-free of course) and when the toaster pops she wants them right away. So we always say 'hot, hot, hot' to get her to wait and she thinks it means (I am assuming based on her usage of it) that hot means 'give me more food, darn it!'. I am trying to get her to understand hot means wait or it isn't ok to eat yet, but we'll see. She calls fake soy cheese hot all the time for some reason, and clearly it isn't.

Outside

Evie woke up this morning demanding juice and to go 'side'--or outside. So we spent a lot of the day with nana and grandpa outside, first at the zoo (she held mommy's hand even though she was in her vroom, vroom:
She and daddy make awfully silly looking ground hogs!And then she ate a Popsicle right before we left. Yummy! On the way home we went past the Powell water 'park' and stopped by. Evie thought the water was a little too wet, so she spent a lot of time on the playground:She was pretty fearless when it came to the slide. Daddy went down with her a few times but then she was all about going solo! She got really bad static in her hair which was pretty funny.

Evie switched to the toddler room at daycare and was there for her first full day on Friday. She had an awful time being dropped off but they said she did well during the day and she seemed totally happy when we picked her up. The new room is more group-activity focused and they take naps on cots (we were sure that would be a total fiasco but apparently she just needed a little back rubbing attention and then she napped for about 2+ hours. If being in the more 'grown-up' room makes her more grown-up, we are in for trouble--she is already so talkative and mobile--next she'll come home potty trained in a day and too good for her diapers!

Evie's eye is all better and PQ is back to mostly normal so disaster averted from last weekend! Here is some more evidence as to why babies should not dress themselves as well as Miss sassafras on the computer and double-spooning it at dinner:

What A Day

Today has been quite a day. Last night, Evie had a sleepover with Nana and Grandpa while mommy and daddy went to Shadowbox's late night show for free. When Evie got home she gave mommy a big kiss on the lips before BITING her hard. I had to give her the no biting talk and even without raising my voice or putting her down, she cried like I broke her heart. It felt awful but she really can't bite. I seem to be the only one she taste tests though. Then Evie and mommy went to a baby shower while daddy and grandpa and nana letterboxed.

The shower was at Graeter's and Evie had sorbet due to her milk allergy. Mommy left to help the new mommy put her gifts in her car and left Evie in her stroller with folks watching. When I came back, Evie's left eye was red, swollen and puffy. She kept rubbing at it and no one saw what happened so I kept watch on her and when it didn't get noticeably better consulted with her pediatrician who sent us to Children's Close to Home urgent care. I stopped by our house while waiting for the pediatrician's return call and found Pasquale getting sick all over his crate and acting funny. I tried calling daddy but his cell wasn't doing its thing right so grandma came hover to assist. At this point I was trying to figure out if both Evie and PQ needed to go to their species appropriate urgent cares and panicking a smidgen. Evie won out on who got to go to the doctor first because she's human and her doctor called back first.
We took Evie to urgent care and they put the fluorescent eye drops in to make sure her eye didn't have anything in it. The doctor didn't see any scratches or anything so most likely she had an allergic reaction to something that came into contact with her eye. Since we were in an ice cream parlor and she has a severe milk allergy, I think she may have gotten a smidge of some drop of ice cream she picked up somehow into her eye and the doctor said that could have done it. She has never had a contact reaction before but I guess this means she can't be around milk stuff at all which is scary because everyone else eats and drinks milk products--yikes!

Meanwhile, Pasquale has continued to be sick all evening and daddy is taking him to the vet in the morning. Hopefully it is just a bug and not something super serious. Mommy dropped off daddy and Evie who stayed with nana and grandpa who had been called in to watch PQ while we were at urgent care and mommy and grandma went to get Evie's eye drop prescription filled. The first 2 pharmacies were closed so we drove over to a 24 hour pharmacy that had a 15 minute wait. To kill time, we stopped at Rita's frozen custard and got a much needed snack (but since daddy loves Rita's and we didn't think it would travel well, we thought we would keep it a secret). We came home, put the drops in Evie's eyes and then I noticed my cell phone was missing. Daddy called it and the nice girl at RITA'S answered, busting mommy and her sneaking out to get italian ice. Figures.

Evie cried and was crabbier than normal (allergic reaction in eye + urgent care + eye drops + 3 teeth coming in, including a molar = unhappy baby). PQ threw up on the carpet when mommy wasn't paying good enough attention and now we are about all ready for bed!

To recap our life most recently before today, we went to the fair last weekend with the Imboden's and Gary which was really fun until Miss Thang had a melt-down. She loves Irene and Alaina:
My cousin Melissa is coming to OSU in the AU and was here for orientation, hanging with Evie during a dinner break:Evie wasn't sure about Melissa at first but they are buddies now.

And my final recap will cover yesterday. We went to with Grandma to the Ballantrae water park in Dublin where Evie played in some of the fountains. It is a cool place, and best of all, it is FREE!
She's still a little shy of the spitting water but she did play in the smaller fountains like these. The large waterfall (not pictured) totally freaked her out though.

When Babies Dress Themselves

Can you tell what's wrong with this picture?
You talking bout me?

Busy, Busy, Busy

We went to Popcorn Pops with the Fishes and Sabs two Friday ago and it was loads of fun! Evie really enjoyed running around and dancing, but she also saved some time to snuggle with Carrie and play with Abby, Katie and Allison. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun!The next day we went with Nana to Hoover Grille (an awesome restaurant with some outdoor seating) and to Inniswood Gardens to see the 'Big Bugs' exhibit which is really cool. We forgot our cameras though!

It was also mommy and daddy's seventh anniversary weekend so we all went to the Park of Roses to see where they got married and saw leaves as big as Evie:
We also tried to get a family picture in the backyard but someone didn't cooperate so here she is with just mommy.
This past week/weekend, Evie had her 3rd music class with Glenn and did so good with the songs and putting her toys away. They actually teach some clean-up/good manners stuff at music class which is terrific. Then over the weekend we went to Abuelo's for dinner and the Hoover Grille (again) for lunch with Nana and Grandpa. We also did some letterboxing with them (found 1/2 items--last time we went we found like 0/4). We visited the Grandview Lazy Daze of Summer too to see Laurie belly dance. Mommy, grandma and daddy all got ice cream at Jeni's while Evie ate fruit snacks. She LOVES fruit snacks if you let her eat them from the bag.

I have been commenting on the last post with new words but forgot a really important one: poopie:)

15 month appointment

Evie had her 15 month Dr appointment yesterday. She did such a great job and the doctor commented on her good naturedness and ease with strangers since she let Dr Gray poke all over her:)

She is growing like a weed. She is now:

• 22 pounds (40%, up from 25% at last visit)!
• 31 inches (75%)
• 19 in head circumference (96%, up from 85%)

So she still has the super ginormous noggin'. She also knows plenty of words and can identify lots more stuff than the minimum they look for at her age. Even funnier, daycare did their monthly newsletter yesterday and it talked all about how so many kids are walking now but for Evie it talked about her talking! She is super chatty and really starting to get stuff (mimics most things we say, so we have to be careful). They said she talks in sentences to them and when they can't figure out what she wants she gets pretty upset. The newsletter predicts she may be the next President!

She had a little trouble last night/this morning being tired and crabby from her shots but it was weird. She would be playing and having fun one minute and then seconds later screaming and having a fit out of nowhere. We put her to bed a little early and I hear she took a nap this morning for grandma because she was still so zonked. Poor thing!

One fun thing we did yesterday was make the coffee table into a 'fort' by throwing a blanket over it. She thought that was a riot.

So here are some of her new, fun words!

• no--and she shakes her head and sometimes does a whole body shake to signify NO
• uh-oh--still a favorite even when it is an 'on purpose' where she says uh-oh and THEN something falls to the ground and also 'Oh no' as a new one
  
• apple, eat, juice, water, waffle, more, yum-yum (sounds like num-num), cracker, 'Os' for cheerios, cheese, spoon (which she is pretty good at using)
• mommy, daddy, nana, baby, nita and geon (from daycare), bubba (all dogs and PQ), emma, ally (cat and dog and grnadparents' houses), woof-woof, quack, ooh-ooh (monkey), moo, vroom-vroom (like every car we pass! plus strollers too), fish (and I swear she is starting to get the hang of saying Allison from playing with her pictures from her shelf most mornings)
• she can identify (and say for some of 'em): eye, ear, nose, teeth, mouth, hair, toes, belly button, shirt, sock, shoe, glasses
• outside, light, seat (for chair), ball, bouncy, rock-rock, bumpy, down, up (although she MUCH prefers to use down for both up and down), done, bye-bye, see-ya, off, book, that? (almost always said as a question with finger pointing), please, thank you, eewww (when something is yucky)
• she also plays 'give me five' and 'peekaboo'
  

Daycare says she is doing colors, like red, blue, green, yellow but she has been a little resistant to say them for us. I am sure I missed tons of things but this is a pretty good start. She says a lot of babble stuff that could be something but is still a little too unintelligible. If I missed one and someone wants to chime in, go for it!

Busy Summer!

This summer has been crazy busy. Just in July alone we have:

• gone to Shakespeare in the Park
• seen Harry Potter V movie
• went to 2 baby showers--congrats Mo and Heather D.
  
• met a former co-worker for lunch over the weekend
• hung out at Randy and Heather's awesome new place
• attended a family wedding
• went to Red, White and Boom (see previous post)
• saw Wicked at Ohio Theater
• saw Rocky Horror Show at Shadowbox (excellent by the way and still showing)
• gone to 2 meal-prep places (Super Suppers and Touch of Gourmet)
• visited baby Andrew, born on 7/11
• went to the zoo
• had out-of-town visitors--we miss you Anne Marie, Jason and Emma!
• attended story time at library
• went to Evie's first music class with Glenn and Bethany

There's probably other stuff too but this has obviously been keeping us very busy. This weekend is mommy and daddy's 7th wedding anniversary which is insane. I don't feel like we're old enough to have been married that long:) Here are some pictures of our adventures:

Emma and Evie in matching shirts

Uncle Carl, Aunt Reagon and Evie at wedding
(mommy, daddy and Evie were all wearing purple but we forgot to get a picture of the 3 of us!)
Evie on the cell phone--she always calls daddy!
WeJoySing music classes