Watermelon Girl

Aunt Lea & Anna came into town to visit last week, and Evie had a great time playing hopscotch (despite the heated discussions over the proper drawing of a hopscotch board), chalk drawing, shopping, dining, and playing inside and out with them on their visit.

And just in case the fun and food wasn't enough, they also gave Evie some fun new outfits, including this awesome watermelon getup that Evie was showing off today:

Aunt Lea and Anna Visit

Aunt Lea and Anna have come to visit from Denver and Evie has been having loads of fun with them. Above is Evie playing on the table at BW3s with them--she really enjoyed the salt and pepper shaker access!

They also helped give her a bath and she was pretty fun during bath time but a little cranky since it was a smidge past her bedtime. On Sunday she had her second swim class and she was not into it as much this time. I don't know if she was tired, or teething or just too cold but she seemed to tolerate being in the pool more than enjoying it like she has in the past. Her poor little lips turned blue almost instantly and her gums were chattering for a while:( When we got home we put this cute pink bow from Lea and Anna in her hair and she looked gorgeous, even with her Robin Williams face (I think this is the face of a teething baby!):Last night we went to the Melting Pot and she loved the balloon Nana got for her, but she is thinking really hard in this picture about how to get it into her mouth. it made me kind of sad though because while we were there I realized that she might never get to enjoy 2/3 courses depending on how this whole milk allergy thing pans out. And even though we scheduled her appointment with the allergist for today, we won't be going. I got a call from daycare after she had been there for about an hour saying she has been projectile vomiting for a while now so daddy went to pick poor sick Evie up. She had to her reschedule her appointment because she is sick. I am just bummed because it sucks for her to be sick AND I was really hoping to find out more about her milk allergy so I know what to expect. Now we'll just have to wait on that until next week.

And I almost forgot her funny from yesterday. So we were prepping everything to give her a bath last night and I stripped her down while daddy prepped the tub. She was in her birthday suit while we went from her room to our room, put some dirty laundry in the hamper, etc. and then we went into the bathroom, which I knew was taking a chance but my gamble paid off. I had Evie standing in the sink looking at herself in the mirror and I looked down and she was peeing everywhere--and boy does she have some good aim for a girl! The good news is it all landed in the sink and went down the drain but it was too funny--seconds longer on the laundry run and we would have been soaked!

Verdict in...

Evie does have a milk allergy according to her RAST test. It is 'moderately' severe and we are going to take her to an allergist soon to have the skin prick test done and see what we need to do from here. I am hoping: (1) that the RAST test was a false positive for milk allergy, (2) if it wasn't that she outgrows this, (3) in either case that she doesn't have any other allergies we just don't know about yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Otherwise, Evie is super cute and loveable and fun and I am thankful everyday for her because she is the best thing I ever did and for sure the best thing daddy and I have ever done as a couple. She is awesomelicious!

Mommy started her new job on Thursday and hopefully this will mean more time with the Juner and less work stress overall, although learning the new in's and out's is going to take time, stress and making some mistakes probably. Fingers crossed for this too!

Last Sunday we went to Cinti to see the Voellmeckes and here is 4 generations of Voellmeckes:
If you zoom in you can see her poor bruised cheek from the coffee table fiasco. It is FINALLY starting to look better after 1 full week!

And here, just for fun, is Evie sleeping. She wouldn't nap on Monday unless I held her:)First swim lessons with all her friends: this Sunday!

First Christmas (Evie)!

She's 8.5 months old already so time for Evie first Christmas. We had tons of fun and got way too many nice things for us and obviously, WAY, WAY, WAY too many things for Evie! She is spoiled rotten (although her grandparents will all tell you she isn't).

Before the Xmas recap begins, here's some Evie stuff:

• Evie seems to be allergic to regular formula--instantly gets hives when she eats it so we have tried soy formula for several days now and not only does she like to eat it (hated 'regular' formula) she doesn't get hives!
• Evie now crawls in the more approved method. She started crawling on Friday night--she tends to lead with her right knee and drag her left leg behind her but she also does full-on crawling. She is already much better at it 3 days later!
• She can pull herself up really good--crazy girl loves to stand. She also tries to stand up in the middle of the floor but usually just ends up making a 'bridge' on the floor with her bootie in the air. It is pretty cute and very funny!

We started with her first Christmas Eve...er...Evie with Grandma and Uncle Carl by going to family church service. It was really cute--they did lots of skits and poems and it went by really fast. Evie was fairly well behaved but also charmed all the people sitting around us! Then we all went to Grandma's house and Aunt Reagon joined us and we had dinner and then on to presents! As you can see, the pile of presents was HUGE!

Best picture of the 3 of us...someone had trouble cooperatingEvie with GrandmaEvie with Uncle Carl and Aunt Reagon

Anyways, we had loads of fun and Evie got lots of great things, including some very cute outfits, toys and wonderful books. She also opened a few things on her own since she is such a big girl:

Afterwards we all came home where Nana and Grandpa were waiting for us with Emma, PQ and Ally. We went to bed so Santa could come and drop off presents--and he didn't skimp at our house AT ALL:

Evie and GrandpaNana and Evie (and Emma Lou)By now Evie was a pro at opening her own presents.

It is also worth noting that the strain of so many presents grew to be too much for such a little-big girl. She fell asleep after mommy nursed her on her lap so she was laid on the floor where she slept for almost an hour. Mommy forgot to take a picture but Nana and Grandpa have one!

And then, because 2 Christmases isn't enough we all packed up the car and went to visit Great-Grandma Treboni and Great-Aunt Mary. Where even more present craziness ensued:

Evie with Great-Grandma

Evie tends to be fussy with G-Grandma T and it makes her feel bad. We know it can be hard to be a baby and we tried really hard to get Evie all set to be super fun before heading over. She did pretty good but when we were getting ready to leave she completely won G-Grandma over when she leaned forward and gave her a big wet Evie kiss on the cheek all on her own! G-Grandma said she wasn't going to wash that cheek for a week:) Then we all came home and the Juner went to bed. What an exhausting Christmas Eve and Day!

Evie's First...

...OSU-Michigan Game: Go Bucks!

...Visit from Great-grandma Judy...
...trip out of state...
So we went to North Carolina to visit family for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Evie did great on the car trips and we were able to make the 10-11 hour trip in 2 days both ways--usually doing the bulk the first day until uber baby melt-down and then just about 3 hours or so on day two. She is awesome!

Here she is as we headed out last Monday morning:
...hotel stay...
She did better sleeping on the way back but during our hotel stay on the way to NC she did not sleep hardly at all--woke up at least every two hours!
...walk in mommy's shirt...

...THANKSGIVING...
Which included her first mashed potatoes and turkey with sweet potatoes (baby style). She wore her super snazzy black dress from grandma and played with her pretty bracelet from the Spencers:

...and her first real swing on a swing set and slide down a slide!
She preferred the swing to the slide (BY FAR). Daddy and cousin Kate pushed her on the swing and she had loads of fun!

Baptism!

Evie was baptised today and a nice number of family and friends were able to come. She wore her great-grandpa Spencer's gown that his grandmother made for him and looked very precious. Evie was very vocal during the ceremony. She has lost her 'inside voice' and is very loud ALL the time now. So we went up front and she started to scream and I gave her a piece of paper to play with, which promptly went into the mouth. This quieted her down but unfortunately it also got black ink all over her mouth. Oops.

She screamed and cried despite lots of attempts to distract her, including giving her a bottle. So she was loud and a smidge of a show-stealer until Pastor Alan held her and then she was fine--grabbing his beard and nose and all smiles. She was pretty funny and had folks laughing, then they handed her back and she started screaming and bawling again which made people laugh some more. Poor crabby little Evie--I think it was nap time.

Afterwards we held a little reception at the church for folks who came and the guest of honor started out crab-tastic and then took a nap so wasn't as fun and snuggly as usual. She loved playing with Uncle Carl again--giggling and smiling--which will hopefully encourage him to stop by more often. It was nice to see family who travelled from Cinti and Indiana--although poor great-grandma T. thought that there were tons of people there and only about 1/6 of my side of the family was there for my dad's side, and about 1/2 of my mom's side came...so it could have been much crazier, more like family Christmas which I can only imagine will be unbelievably insane this year with a baby added into the mix.

Evie also got a very pretty cross necklace from Shari, Traci, Jodi, et al and was very happy to wear her first necklace.Evie had a party outfit that you can see a snippet of here--we have big plans for some professional pics of this one so you might see it again soon! The beret is tooo cute!

Evie's Almost 5 Months Old

Evie June bug turns 5 months old tomorrow--hard to believe how fast she is growing. She had a really busy week--visiting great-Grandma and Aunt Mary on Monday, daycare, and then she had loads of friends over for the Texas game yesterday! She also taught daddy how to feed her and read herself a book:


Today she got to do lots of fun things:

Notice how many pictures involve Ms thing with something in her mouth!

Evie June's Been Busy

Here are some cute pics of Evie June:We had to put her in 'jail' for trying to pick her nose as you can see.

Today Evie visited with her cousins. More pics are available at the family website:
Evie has also had several milestones this week:

• One of her bouncy seats has a cow toy where you pull on the handle (really hard) and it plays music. We have helped her pull the orange handle several times but on Friday morning Evie pulled it down and made the cow play music TWO times on her own. It is actually rather hard to do, so go Evie!

• Today, we had Evie in a white dress and while we were eating dinner, she (on her own) kept pulling the dress over her head and then back down, kind of like she was playing peek-a-boo on her own! I have a great little video of her--she was a riot!
  

Thumb

Did you know that Evie has two thumbs? She just found out herself, so it is big news! She of course has found her thumb a few times in the past, but recently she has been able to pretty reliably place it in her mouth when she wants something to soothe herself. Pretty awesome accomplishment and we don't mind if she is a 'sucker'.

We had a busy week and weekend. Evie went on her first outing without either of us when Nana took her to Magic Mountain with her cousins and family from North Carolina. Then she went to COSI with everyone which she thought was really exciting since they are running the Star Wars exhibit.

Here is Evie learning the force from Yoda. She was very interested.Evie appreciated that R2-D2 is her size...especially when compared to the Wampawho was a little scary--can't you tell?She was also afraid of Darth, but it wasn't too bad since Grandpa was there.

OK, so you probably noticed that Evie managed to sleep through the entire exhibit, several hours worth of cool stuff she didn't even know she was missing!

Sunday, Evie had a bad day. She was doing some raspy breathing so mommy gave her some nose drops to try and help her out, which seemed to work. Then later, she started scream crying like she was in really bad pain and it took us a very long time to get her calmed down. Today, I called the doctor and they said we should bring her in just in case so we went in this afternoon. She was in good health but may have had a bad bout with acid reflux. Since it was the first and only time she has been like this, we are going to wait before doing anything else. We did find out though that she weighs 12 lb 14 oz now--in about 2 weeks she has put on 12.5 ounces which is crazy. She is literally getting so big, so fast! This may be my newest favorite Evie pick: