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?

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.

Red, White & BOOM 2007: Energizer Bunny Baby

Red, White & Boom 2007 was this Tuesday, and Evie joined her parents and Nana & Grandpa at the Pepsi/WNCI/WCMH VIP party again this year - she's already a regular! It was a great time, but before I get into that, I have to mention Evie & Allison's play date last weekend. Carrie & Allison came over and played with Amy & Evie for awhile Saturday afternoon. I missed out, but from what I hear the girls had a good time, with some typical young baby drama. None of our pictures turned out particularly well, but Carrie managed to grab a few great ones (which I grabbed from their site):



But - back to the present! This Tuesday was Red, White & Boom, and we took Evie down for her second year in a row! We figured she probably wouldn't be sleeping through the fireworks this year like she did last year, so there was some definite worry that we'd have to bail early due to a crabby baby kept out way past her bedtime... but we were all willing to do that if needed.

Well, this year's new & improved "Mobile Evie 1.3" was definitely a bit more of a handful than last year, and wore Mommy, Nana & Grandpa out chasing around the garage rooftop checking everyone out and making sure all the partygoers saw her pretty new July 4th dress and how awesome she was (duh!)
In addition to running around all over creation, getting a new balloon animal (a monkey, which she happily quoted for the rest of the evening -- "ooo ooo ooo!" She also spent a LONG time playing with this super advanced & expensive new toy... a cup full of ice... Dumping out the ice, picking it back up again, pouring the cubes on a chair, on the ground, handing them out to us... she was having a blast with the ice. And amazingly, never tried to eat the dirty ice! Bonus!

She also had a good time plane-watching with Mommy & Nana:


And trying on Mommy's sweatshirt:

She DID start wearing down a little around 8:30-9 (more than an hour past her normal bedtime, even when she HASN'T been running around like a crazy baby all evening), and we laid her down in the stroller for awhile, but she was too nosy about all the goings on, and never got more than "drowsy" (but also never got more than "mildly crabby"). When the fireworks finally came, she had a great time watching:


The ride home after the show was, as I'm sure you can imagine, LONG and SLOW, and at first Evie was none-too-happy to be stuck in the car seat... but it didn't take long before she was out cold and sleeping soundly for the rest of the night.

Busy May & Happy Mother's Day!!

Hey there! So it's May already, and Evie's been plenty busy so far this month! So here are some highlights of Evie's past couple weeks.

We took advantage of the great late Spring weather and used one of Evie's birthday presents (a zoo pass!) to go to the Columbus Zoo with our friends Bethany, Jeff & Glenn. The weather was great, but Columbus IS currently in that just barely too cold morning to just barely too hot afternoon phase, so by later in the day things were starting to get a bit too warm. Still, Evie had a great time taking in the sights & showing off her new shades. She especially enjoyed the flamingos and the aquarium:


Evie remains a very loved little girl, and has gotten lots of fun new presents recently -- like this great Evie-sized picnic table complete with it's own umbrella! Evie loves it - even indoors, she likes sitting and reading or playing with toys... (she also likes to try and STAND on it, much to Mommy & Daddy's chagrin - the girl's a daredevil!)


Evie's friends and family are also doing their best to make sure Evie stays in the "Best Dressed of '07" fashion lists. Here are a just a few of the many beautiful outfits she's gotten recently:




But of course, today is a special day... being Mommy's SECOND official Mother's Day! Evie even got Mommy some new Mommy-themed books to read with her during story time & bedtime. To celebrate the day, we all went to the delicious & extravagant Mother's Day Brunch at The Blackwell. Unfortunately, Grandma V. wasn't feeling well and had to stay home - get well soon Grandma V.! Evie misses you!

The food was incredible as always - it's tough not to eat until it hurts with a spread this good. Evie knows how much Daddy loves the food, and even went so far as to share her own:


Of everyone, Evie was the most sensible at lunch... which meant that she was still hungry for dinner, unlike Mommy & Daddy. So she got to try out her very first TV Dinner! (Gerber Graduates Chicken & Pasta Wheels w/ Peas) She had a good time with it, and didn't even try to flip the whole tray until the very end!


And finally, after such a busy day, what better way to end a great Mother's Day than by snuggling with Mommy!

Easter

Evie got 3 different Easter baskets for Easter--lucky baby! She also went to church and did a really good job during the service and was super cute.She loves banging stuff together and making noise! And she is too cute (and knows it!).She's also a daredevil. Here's her new favorite thing to do with daddy and grandpa--they push her around on a rubbermaid box lid almost like a sled and she just laughs and laughs. She thinks it is super fun when she falls over and that is when she laughs the loudest! They also push her under the coffee table and she deliberately sits up tall so she hits her head on it--so crazy:After nana and grandpa left, Evie got even crazier--she climbed into her rocking chair and was standing up in it and rocking, then she climbed into the bookshelf and tried to stand up--which didn't go so well:

Happy Easter From Evie!

Amy took Evie to the mall to get her picture taken with the Easter Bunny today!

As you can see, she had a great time.

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!

The Germinator's First Halloween

We think Evie might be the germinator because mommy and daddy were very sick with a stomach bug this weekend, and about 80% of the people we hung out with on Saturday also got it. I am blaming Evie as the original source of the bug because 2 teachers at her daycare also got it, so seems likely that she was the source of the ookie germs. Ironically, she has yet to be sick herself! ***This just in*** Nana and Grandpa who are wonderful and amazing, came and cared for Evie all day Sunday (starting at 4 a.m.) since mommy and daddy were so sick and now it appears that the germinator infected them too. I feel sooo terrible after they did us such a big favor by watching her for over 14 hours (and beginning at 4 a.m. too). We owe them super huge!

Evie enjoyed her first Halloween. We stayed at the house to hand out candy and play-doh and she was a very good helper--she taste-tested quite a few of the items to ensure that they were safe for the other kids (or us, since we obviously didn't pass out the mashed, chewed and sucked on wrapped candy to anyone). Grandma got to come over and be a part of this holiday since she will miss Evie's first Thanksgiving (we plan on visiting relatives in NC). I have some video of Evie helping herself to the candy/play-doh stash which is pretty funny.

We got Evie a cheap costume at Old Navy over the weekend so she was a cow-girl by day and lobster by night. Here are some pics--now that she rolls around everywhere and is almost wanting and able to crawl it is hard to get a good 'still' shot of her but thought these were cute anyway:

What'choo looking at? Never seen a cute lobster before? :)

Red, White & BOOM!

Last night Evie ventured downtown for her very first Red, White & BOOM! Just to be safe, we checked with her doctor about it at her last appointment - and the doctor said go for it, so go for it we did. Thanks to Grandpa, we had tickets to the Pepsi, WNCI & NBC4 party on the LaVeque garage rooftop, and didn't have to deal with the huge crowds down on street level. I doubt we would've gone into the crowds with her at this age - just to chaotic. But as-is, it's a great deal, so we went. Evie was way excited, and dressed festive for the occasion:

Well, as a matter of fact we all were:

Going in, we were kind of worried about the weather - especially while driving through a particularly nasty storm on our way downtown. However, aside from a couple brief downpours and a 10 minute drizzle, the weather turned out quite nice! The rain kept things cooled down, and had the added benefit of keeping some of the crowds away. All in all, after the rain cleared up, it was a GREAT night! While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, Evie waited in the looong line and got her very first balloon sculpture -- a balloon flower wrist corsage:

Not long after getting back with the balloon spoils, the fireworks got underway:

Evie was completely enthralled by the fireworks:

Out cold! She was awake for maybe the first five minutes of the fireworks, but snoozed for the the whole rest of the show, completely unfazed by all the bright colors and LOUD noises -- even the finale. In fact, she was pretty much out cold for the WHOLE rest of the evening - through the traffic getting home (actually not too bad this year! Weather again, I expect), through picking up the pups at Nana & Grandpa's house, and home...