Birthday approaching...

Today Evie is 10 months old. The year mark is fast approaching, and daily reminding me that I haven't accomplished anything close to what I wanted by this time, like getting back to pre-pregnant figure, and solving all the world's problems.

On a happier note, last night we were hanging out with some friends, and one of them, Janeene, has a little girl exactly 2 weeks younger than Evie, and it was so cute to see Evie and Koree interacting and playing together. I must say that I love this age for kids. They were talking to each other, and keeping each other out of trouble, and getting in trouble together; it was great :-) So, shout out to Janeene: we need to get the girls together more and get a video of them ;-)

Frustration!

I just found this among my stash of pictures, and I had to share it. The first 30 seconds of the movie's the fun part, but the movie runs a little long, so I don't expect you to watch the whole thing. So funny!

Weekend Capers

This last weekend was quite exciting! We went to the new Harry Potter movie Friday night, which was technically our first date in I don't care to say how long. The movie was satisfactory as far as movies go, but of course I was sad that they left out some of the things that they did. Oh well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I think that's how the saying should be applied :-I

Saturday Brandon went in to work in the morning, which was unusual, but provided some nice padding for our finances. That afternoon he came back, and we went to celebrate the afternoon as a family, by purchasing the expansion to our new favorite game, Dominion. Highly recommended, and now we can play with 8 players. So, if anyone is interested in a game night, we have a game that accommodates a larger number of people than most games ;-)

We also heard that afternoon that my grandpa decided to get baptized into our church, after 50+ years of associating with it :-) This was very good news for our extended family, and has been a long time coming. We are very proud of him, as he was baptized on Sunday. We love you Grandpa!

Sunday we went to visit Brandon's mother and siblings, and it was fun to watch Evie learn more about her new little cousin, Alex Rose, who was born almost a month ago. It's amazing to think that Evie was ever that small, or that non-vocal. Crazy how the time flies, isn't it? Speaking of time flying, Evie will turn 10 months old this week, which also makes me feel aged. And life goes on :-)

Repelling

This was the second cliff we repelled from, and here in the middle, the side of the cliff dipped in, so you just had to lower yourself down the rope without walking down the side.

Evie wanted to play with the squirrel real bad :-)

The squirrel who was brave enough to come visit and ask for our food

Brandon's brother, John

Danyka

Brandon coming down

Carissa

She made it!

My mom did pretty good with the repelling. She and I were both done after a couple of times down, though :-)

Me coming down the cliff.

One of the few pictures of Brandon and I together lately.

Happy Evie. We take it when we can get it :-)

Brandon and Evie excited to be out and doing something new.

Swimming Pools and Finger Foods

For the summer, my parents bought my siblings and Brandon and me season passes to Seven Peaks, so we've been taking Evie, and it's been so fun to see her become acquainted with the water. It usually takes her a while to feel ok sitting in the water, but after a little bit, she's splashing like there's no tomorrow.

We have also been introducing finger foods to Evie, which she's a big fan of. It's so cute to watch her try to pick everything up. And it's not just with her forefinger and thumb, but she gets all the fingers involved. It's awesome!

So, within the last couple of days, Evie's decided to combine these two things that she now loves. She's found our dog's, Buddy's, food and water bowl and just loves to splash in the water and pick up his dog food. So, now when she's not getting into everything else, we've got to make sure that she's not headed for the dog food. This is what we get for encouraging curiosity :-)

"One more?" "No, not now. Maybe come back in a couple of years...or never."

Lately we've been dealing with the glory of teething with Evie, and last night was especially fun. My poor little girl was having such a hard time falling asleep because she's stubborn, has way too much energy, and obviously the infant Tylenol and teething tablets weren't working. Our little family didn't get to bed until 2:00 a.m. and Evie still woke up a couple times after that. I haven't been up this much with Evie since she stopped nursing 6 months ago.

So, this post is a commendation to all you parents who decided to have more than one. Props to you. Now question: how conscious were you when you and your spouse decided to have that extra one, two, three, or how ever many bundles of joy, to do everything all over again? Or did God come into the equation and say, "No, trust me. You'll thank me for this in 20 years." Just wondering.

Baby Showers

This last week has been semi-eventful. My dad has been up from AZ for the past couple of weeks, which has been nice, and a great help to my mom. We had a family reunion with my dad's family, which was a lot of fun. It's always nice to get together with family you don't get to see very often. I'm still waiting on the compilation of pictures, but I'll put them up as soon as I get them ;-)

Brandon's cousin James and his wife Stephanie are expecting an adorable little boy, Chase, come October, and Stephanie has been rolling in the baby showers before their little family treks back east to Pittsburgh for law school. I was the lucky one asked to attend both of her showers, and they were very well put together with lots of good food, not to mention bringing in a nice haul :-) But we'll miss them lots when they leave next month, as they've been our number one couple to hang out with. We'll be holding auditions for our next best friend couple soon ;-)

Last night Brandon and his cousins had a Halo Night with a bunch of other guys, ergo the wives had girls night. My cousins, for all intents and purposes, Keith and Tyson, got to participate for their first time in Halo Night, and their wives, my real cousins, Stacia and Julie, hung out with me and the other wives. I really enjoy the girls nights we have, just because I don't have them too often anymore, so it was a lot of fun to kick back and let everyone else play with Evie for a little bit ;-)

Evie has started communicating a bit more clearly recently. Her favorite words so far are "up," "what," "dada," and "bob." I'm assuming that "bob" is just easier for her to say right now than "mom" but due to some clever deducing on Brandon's part, we figured out that I am "bob." Lucky me. (So that's Evie and "Bob" in the picture.) Other than that, things have been about the same.

Well, since I haven't blogged in about a year, I figured I should probably do an update. Since last July, we had precious baby Evie, who showed up 8 days early on September 23, 2008. We have also relocated twice now, and are living with my parents in the same house I graduated from high school in.

Right now, Brandon and I are both working part time jobs, mine in the morning, and Brandon at night. We've been riding the work train for a while, and trying to figure out what Brandon wants to be when he grows up. No luck yet. Hopefully, if the muse descends, Brandon will be able to get back into school in the fall, and his schedule permitting, I might take a few more classes too, seeing as how I have a scholarship still waiting on me, along with just 38 credits left for a Bachelors.

In the meantime, Evie is now 9 months old, and too mobile for her own good. It's quite the chore keeping up with her, but she's gotten to the age where she is just a peach to be around, aside from the grumpy days of teething. She's very responsive and a lot of fun to watch. I look forward to many days of playing and interacting together as we learn more about each other.