quick, isn't he?

This is what Evan did while I was a mere 15 feet away (but around a corner) taking one load out and putting another in!! Little stinker pulled the trash can down and started taking stuff out!

long entry...

...just warning ya'll! :) Lots has happened that seemed blog worthy this past weekend, and so I'm going to try to get all in one entry! Here goes!!

The weather is crazy!! Thursday was the blizzard, but Friday the sun was shining and the roads were clear enough that night that we were able to go to our dinner party!! It took Scot almost 3 hours to get home Thursday night, though, which was a huge bummer, but we were praising God that he was safe. I think he said he passed 3 or 4 major accidents in the 20 miles between work and home!! And yesterday was gorgeous! Scot wanted to fly his kites since it was windy enough, and so we did. We didn't even have coats on, that is how nice it was. And then this morning, we woke up to snow and I feel like I'm in the middle of a snow globe! It's a perfect day to sip hot tea, and read a book. And that's what I would be doing during Evan's naps today if I didn't have 4 loads of wash to do and a mountain of dress shirts to iron so my husband looks sharp when he goes to work! Thankfully, I can pull the ironing board in front of the TV and watch Ever After or Save the Last Dance courtesy of WalMart's 5 dollars DVD stand!!


His first blizzard!!! (Thursday)


Out for a walk with mom a couple days later....

This past weekend was so much fun!! Evan is at such a great age/stage, and it's hilarious to watch him explore and do new things. I swear, he does something new everyday!! He 'waves', although he doesn't get it yet. He is cruising like there's no tomorrow and he's learning that his little bitty fingers can go IN things now. So we're constantly pulling that little bitty finger OUT of noses and phone jacks and ears and cups and anything else. But he points to noses and eyes and mouths now when you sk him, which is incredibly cute. He has also figured out how to open drawers! He'll stand at Scot's 'sock drawer' (the lowest one) and pull the socks out and play with them for a good 20 minutes while I'm getting ready for the day! This past weekend, he figured out the Tupperware drawer in the kitchen!!


Pulling it out!


Getting the 'toys' out! I need to stock this drawer with more 'toys' now that he knows how to get into it by himself!!

Saturday night, my folks came over for dinner with our good friend Dale! We've known Dale and his wife Kelly (who unfortunately wasn't able to make the trip as Dale was out on business) for a decade now. We met them when we lived in CA and they have been good friends to us for all the years after we moved! Dale was so excited to meet Evan and we were just excited to have his 6 foot 4 frame in our dining room!! Evan had a blast with him and he was so sweet, he brought me my first Orchid!! And it's pink to boot!! Now I just have to research how to keep it alive! :)


Evan with his 'Uncle' Dale!!!

Something else that's totally cute, is the fact that when either of us showers, Evan likes to be in the thick of it!! He plays by himself the majority of the time, but every few minutes, he'll crawl over to the shower, pull the curtain aside and peek in to make sure we haven't slipped out unnoticed!! It's the cutest thing.


Peeking in as Scot got ready for our company!

Evan has also figured out how to play with things now!! He had his little firetruck the other day and was actually pushing and pulling on it and crawling with it to make it go places. It was the cutest thing ever. I need to get some boats for him to play with in the tub as bath time is slowly becoming a favorite for him. He splashes and splashes and gets this huge grin. But don't you dare and try and splash him!!! He only likes self inflicted water drops!


Playing with the firetruck!!

Oh, and the BIG news!!! We've cut our first tooth!! He woke up yesterday morning and when he smiled I could see that the gum had split, and when I stuck my finger in his mouth, I felt a very sharp little tooth!! So it's hasn't completely come through yet, but I'm hoping that the worst is over. I'm thinking not, since the other tooth looks just about ready to pop, too. So maybe we aren't done with being sick and snotty. Bummer.


When sick, mommy bends the rules a little and lets me sleep on her while she reads a book. I'm only this little once, ya know!! And sick we are. I think the teething is at fault. The completly harmless runny nose, turned into a cough, which he in turn gave to me. So now I have no voice. It's lovely.

Well, one load of wash is done and I need to start the other, so that's it for now! Hope you all enjoyed a little peek into our weekend fun!

...or not

So when I came up from the basement (where our 'play room' and computer are) I was met with a sight of very large flakes falling at an incredible speed from the VERY white/gray sky. Guess I won't be going out after all. (And it's a good thing I have food in the pantry...) This picture was taken just a little while later out our front door. You can't really tell, but there's a lot of snow falling, and fast. It's not sticking to the roads yet...but it will be soon.

teething...

...and for Master Evan, that means a really runny nose, glassy eyes, rosy cheeks, extra drool, extra whining, and a cough that started about 2 am and hasn't really given up. Thank goodness for humidifiers and Tylenol!! I can't wait for these teeth to pop, I just want my little boy back!!

On another note, we have a blizzard warning in affect until Friday am - so I need to make sure my pantry is stocked and such things like that. I was hoping to get out today and get a new clock to match the living room since the only one we have is Mr. Melting Clock that Scot picked out for our registry. We never did get the other more, umm...mature-looking clock we had listed. So now, 2 years and almost 8 months later, I am going to remedy this fact so we have a clock in our living room that actually matches our decor a little more. haha. So as long as the weather holds, we're going to make a run for it before we get locked in for who knows how many days! I predict a lot of tea drinking (a new favorite is this) and game playing and maybe almost finishing my new book! Snow days are good for some things!

hooray for spring and all that means!!!

For us, Spring means many things. Spring means trips to the park on nice days. It means flying kites and the start of picnics. Spring is the signal that the flowers are going to start coming and for some, allergies (for those of you who fall into this category like I did the last 2 years, I'm so sorry. I feel your pain. But there is hope - move to CO!) Spring means wearing light colored clothes to church and also getting to use my light pink and pearlized nail polishes instead of my darker shades! Spring means no more flannel sheets or down comforter (but I was cold last night and had to get an extra blanket!). Also, Spring means that I put all my sweaters and fall/winter clothes away and said a nice big hello to all my shorts and short sleeve shirts. But of course, since we do live in the wonderfully unpredictable state of CO, I kept a few of my favorite sweaters back. Switching clothes out, though, means that I need to get the big bag of Goodwill things to Goodwill!! And of course, Spring means....spring cleaning!! That's my on-going project this week, and it will probably spill into next week too. :)

Hope you all have enjoyed the first few days of Spring as much we have!!

playground fun

I know, I've been blogging like crazy and if you haven't visited in a few days, you have some catch up work to do, but like I promised, here are some pictures of this afternoon at the park with Scot! The boys had so much fun playing together and Scot got his first go with the new camera!! There were so many pictures to chose from so the ones here are just my favorites! (I realize I could have made a slide show, but I'm too lazy at the moment and up-loading is just soo easy)


Having so much fun with daddy!! He loves swinging, and as you can see, he gets up pretty high, but he laughs almost the entire time, so we figure we'll kick the whole 'afraid-of-heights' phobia now while it's easy!


Weee!! (I love his face, it says, huh?? And it seriously looks like Scot is having more fun than Evan)


He didn't know how he liked going down by himself


He loved playing in the grass, though!! I think they were 'growling' at each other here.


Time to play with mommy!!


Laughing like only he can laugh, it's such an amazing sound and we will seriously do almost anything to hear it!! Including treating him like a watermelon....


Walking in the grass was not a favorite.


His I'm tired response when you ask "Where's Mommy's nose?"


Just a fun shot...too bad we only brought the telephoto lens with us or we would have done a family picture!

OK. That's it. For a few days at least...I'm all blogged out.

now you know....

...why my little boy has a tummy...



He sneaks into my baby bag to find the animal crackers...


...and he loves animal crackers just like his daddy!!


Ritz, too...he's discovered he likes Ritz.

So all this eating has contributed to his little belly and his adorable cheeks! Just in case you were wondering. Now you know.

It's the first day of Spring....

..and I actually heard birds chirping this morning when I woke up!! I thoroughly enjoy Spring (I like Autumn more, but Spring is a close second) and I love watching trees bud and flowers come up - ahhh....it's just so nice to be out of Winter!!

Evan and I took a good long walk this morning with a friend who lives about 20 minutes away! We had never walked together so I wasn't quiet sure what kind of 'walk' we were going on. Well let me tell ya, she can walk!! And up hills, too!! I'm going to be so sore tomorrow. We walked for about 2 hours and ended up at this huge play ground so her son, Eli, could play after being so good in the stroller. I was kicking myself for not having my camera with me, Eli was so cute and Evan had his first go in a swing all by himself and he LOVED it!! His face was all lit up and he laughed every time he 'came down' from a good swing! It was amazing. I took him on some slides and we even crawled through a tunnel!! Hopefully the weather will be good this weekend and all 3 of us will go to a park so Scot can see how much fun Evan had!! (And this time, I'll bring the camera - promise)

He is so concentrated on the grass!! I have some close-ups of him playing with a single blade, adorable!!


I just loved this little face he made!! I love that the grass is slowly starting to turn green again!! YEAH for Spring!!!

Happy St. Patricks Day!!

Growing up, I hated the holiday. I hated the color green and so I would inevitably get pinched. A lot. I hate getting pinched. And then I got smart and started wearing green on my socks or earrings, but I would still get pinched and even though I would get to pinch back for the mis-pinch, I still hate getting pinched more than I hate wearing green. So now, I just wear green. But I also like the color now, so we're all good. But I made sure to dress Evan in green - NO ONE is pinching him today!! (And if they do...I'll just pinch back...)

We got the camera yesterday and we've been having fun. Yesterday I read the manual - well, skimmed it at least - and took a few pictures and deleted quite a few in the process of figuring out how it works and what all the buttons and dials do. This morning I took a few of Evan right after breakfast while he was still waking up and not so go-go-go, again, just experimenting with light and different features on the camera. And while I realize I'm a little camera snappy right now, I'm also really good about deleting. :) But here are just a few pictures from the last 24 hours!


The first 'real' picture I took yesterday!! I love my boys!!


Sleepy boy with an orange nose, what does your mother feed you??


Climbing. And because there is no sense in stopping him, I take a picture.


Just a fun shot...and I love it.

thank you, grammy!!

My mom came up on Saturday to spend the day with Evan and they had so much fun!! From reading to playing, just hanging out to swinging, they had a blast. It was a gorgeous day and grammy took Evan for his first ever swing session!! I think the last time I swung on swings was days before I had Evan - I was trying to let gravity take over...anyways, it would seem that Evan loves to swing as much as his mother!! He and grammy had such a good time in the sunshine - he laughed, she laughed, I laughed and wished and wished that I had the new camera already to capture all the special moments! But even with our little digital, I was able to capture some, I just won't tell you how many pictures I deleted! haha I was also able to take mom to Wash Park and we walked the big loop twice!! Evan slept the entire time and it was good to people watch and just talk. She stayed til right after dinner and we were sad to see her go - it's always fun when she spends time with us and Evan loves getting to hang with his grammy!

Scot and I were able to actually get in a movie Saturday night. He had never seen Batman Begins, so we watched that courtesy of a friend's DVD library and had popcorn and enjoyed a baby-free evening (he was asleep). Today after church, Scot and I took advantage of the great weather and walked Wash Park. Twice. Again. Let me tell ya, my legs are sore. (For those of you not from around here, one loop is probably about 3 or 4 miles...) One very funny moment was when we passed a group of teenage boys smoking (which I never see there!!) I started running with the stroller and Scot did, too - the only difference was that he was holding a spoon and a pint of Mango Sorbet that we were sharing as our Sunday treat! He looked hilarious and one gal laughed and commented that that was the way to eat and run!!

Well, it's late and I can feel that my mind is stating to go incoherent a little...I'm going to head to bed now and hope for a good nights rest. Evan's been sleeping so well, which is a nice change from the couple weeks after we got back from FL, but just in the last few nights, he's been waking up screaming, except he's not awake and all I have to do is just pick him up and he quiets, but it's the strangest thing...he's asleep the whole time. Can he really be suffering from night terrors or night mares already?!? Any of your kids do this??


Playing with an empty beer bottle - he loves non toys and it was just too funny to not take a picture!!


Silly boy with a Cheerio stuck on him


Our sweet boy - probably my favorite picture at the moment, it's just SO Evan!!

hockey with daddy

Scot has today off and since he's been itching to get on the ice, he went and played a pick-up game this morning!! And, since it wasn't late at night, I decided it would be good for Evan and I to go watch!! Don't ask me about the sport, don't even ask what position my husband plays - I don't know. All I know is that it was freezing in there and I didn't take my coat off. Evan was wrapped in a fleece blanket the entire time -- yet another reason he won't be playing hockey even though it was/is his dad's favorite sport! Sorry, kiddo, mom's a wimp when it comes to the cold!!! Needless to say, it was fun for us to watch, Evan had a blast watching all the movement and it was neat for me to see Scot 'in action'!! He scored more goals than I could keep track of and he was the best player out there if I might say so myself!!!

That's Scot (#18) about ready to get the puck!!!

gotta love bath time

I think I love bath time more than Evan does. It's just so relaxing and I love watching him splash around and play in the water!! And sometimes, it's a double treat for him because Scot will take a break from studying to do bath duty. There is something about boys and their dads, I tell ya! So, since Scot helped out, I was able to take some pictures!! Here is our bathing beauty...i mean...cutie.


I just love bath time photos, don't you?? There's just something about them that makes them some of the cutest baby pictures.


We had to show daddy how to spike his hair!!


Escape from the water monster! AHHHH!!!! Yes, he is standing in the tub. He also craws around sometimes....don't worry, I never even bat an eye when he's in there. And he's not really trying to escape, he just wants to play with the camera, too....


Snuggling with daddy - all warm and cozy!!!

Scot's birthday week(end)

In our family, we like to make birthday celebrations last as long as possible. Scot is MUCH better about giving me a birthday week than am to him, but, I think he would say he had a good a birthday week and a fabulously fun weekend!! On Tuesday, my folks came up to celebrate with us as they weren't able to make the Sunday evening party. We had ice cream and they gave Scot a nice box kite! Scot loves flying his kite that I got him last year, but this one is especially designed for traveling and such! He loved it!

Saturday morning was the official start of the birthday weekend. I had bought Scot's favorite sugar cereal per his request - Lucky Charms - and we enjoyed that Saturday morning! I felt like a little kid again minus the cartoons! I had gathered some of Scot's friends for a little party that evening. I made fajitas and we scrunched 9 people around a typically 6, sometimes 8 person, table! It was a blast!! We all just sat and talked and I think the last couples left around 11! We love entertaining and being there was seriously the best gift they could have given Scot! He was the happiest guy. Scot wanted a jelly bean cake, so that's what I made, and I also made Dirt Dessert complete with gummy worms hidden all over!! Scot's a sucker for Oreo anything and he loved the idea!! I had not eaten Dirt Dessert since I was a kid, and neither had the guests! You should have seen the look on some of their faces when I dug into this "dirt"!! Priceless! Needless to say, the cute jelly bean cake come in a far behind seocond to the "dirt"!!

Sunday, Scot's actual birthday, we went to Le Peep for breakfast! (Another tradition we have is that we got out for birthday breakfast and I make birthday dinner!) Scot had these amazing almond cranberry pancakes and I went with the stuffed french toast! Oh my goodness.....words don't even begin to describe the decadence that was! :) The Lord was good and gave Scot beautiful weather for his birthday! After church, we changed into jeans and t-shirts and went to Wash Park to walk and enjoy the outdoors. 2 hours, at least 6 miles, a kite flying session, and a good nap for the baby later, we got home so I could start on dinner!! Scot requested my Spinach Manicotti for his birthday dinner and it was yummy! His Uncle Dave was able to come over and enjoy it with us, which was very nice. We had left over cake, ice cream, and "dirt" for dessert! It was great to get to hang out with Dave - he brought his cameras over (he really likes photography) and some of the pictures he took from his recent trip out to CA!! He even let us in on a great place to buy demo cameras at a great deal - so look out - the picture quality on the blog may change soon!!! This is the camera we're considering....not at this price, though!

Along with the birthday weekend, Evan received his first ever 'battle wound'. He was cruising along the very square coffee table in the living room and slipped and fell and just nearly missed his eye. Poor kid scraped himself and has a nice little shiner to prove it! But he was tough and pulled through. We went to the nutritionist today, too, and Evan weighed in at 15lbs 12oz!! Still right below the 5%, but since he's growing, they're just assuming that he's just going to be small for now and it's nothing to worry about. So I'm enjoying the little cuddly boy while it lasts!!

Here are some pictures from the weekend!!


The birthday boy with his Jelly Belly cake!!


Cake numero dos in cognito!! Would have fooled you, too, huh?


Everyone (minus Ryan and Kurt) just chatting waiting for dessert!


Evan and little Abby!


Who is this other little person?!?


The little guy is all ready for bed!!


His shiner...the morning after. I know, I know...I felt horrible! But hey, he's a boy, this is supposed to happen, right?


Opening gifts with daddy on the actual birthday!!

i just couldn't wait

So I decided to go private a little earlier than anticipated. I didn't know how easy it was - haha!! I also didn't know how many people read my blog - thank you to all of you who stop by daily, weekly, monthly or only when bored - it is a real encouragement to know that I'm not writing to just a couple people who I'm sure read along!

In celebration, here are a few pictures from the last couple days and I'm not even scared that someone is going to steal them and use them for 'other' purposes!!


He LOVES is when Scot comes home from work - his little body seizes up and he giggles like there's no tomorrow!!


Cardboard in mouth on daddy's watch....oh yeah, we love the way paper tastes!! :D


My little boy is ALL boy...climbing on and through anything he can!


Look mom....doesn't this look fun??


His own little 'chair fort' - haha. He played under there for about 15 minutes after this picture was taken, he just had so much fun!!