i'm happy to announce...

...(no, not that)...that Evan has hit 2 major milestones!! Number one: he said Mama today for the first time and he's said it about 4 or 5 times since!! I can't tell you all how excited I am that he can now say Mama, even though I know he doesn't associate it it with me yet, it's still cool to hear him say Mama when I ask him instead of the always-and-forever-fallback, Dada. :D

And number two...are you ready for this? (because we weren't!) He took his first steps yesterday!! Scot and I were playing with him on the floor and he's been doing a lot more standing the last few days and and all of a sudden after standing for about 10 seconds, he took a step. And fell. But still...he did it. And he did it a second time last night, and then again this morning when my folks were here on their way to the airport!! We were so shocked last night we didn't know what to do, we kind of looked at each other like "did we REALLY just see that?!?" Anyways, that's the big news in this house right now!!!

I've been slightly crazy busy the last few days. Among other things, I've discovered what a jackpot the Goodwill is near the house....I'm talking Ann Taylor and LOFT things in brand new condition for 2 and 3 bucks!! Most of the stuff I've picked up have been Old Navy or LOFT stuff....such a deal!!! I got the cutest pair of pink capris today for $4!! I've never been a huge thrift store shopper, but I'm changing my ways! This place is amazing! I needed a few summer tops (since birthday and Christmas fall within a month of each other, I'm always covered on fall/winter clothes, summer stuff is where I lack...) and a couple capris. I spent less than $30 and came out with 4 tops and 3 capris! I think I'm set and you can't beat the price! But that's not all that's kept me busy, I promise. haha. The next few days should be a little less hectic for us here and I'm looking forward to that! Thankfully, the weatherman says we should have good weather for the next few days...hopefully we'll get to play a little outside!

Hope you all have had a good week and have a good weekend!!

a wonderfully weird weekend

Weird point number one. It was freezing on Saturday. It was gorgeous on Sunday. I went to bed last night listening to the rain and woke up this morning to a solid 2 or 3 inches of snow. Weird. Weird point number two. Well, I guess there was nothing else weird about the weekend besides the weather, but it was a wonderful weekend.

This past week was Scot's spring break so to say, and even though he studied during the day, he took the entire evenings off to just hang!! We had so much fun. We finished Eclipse (book 3 in the Twilight series) and now we're just waiting to get our copy of the last book back. We played with Evan alot and just had an all around good time. He also didn't study at all on Saturday (he typically studies all day and then hangs out in the evening, but he took it ALL off!!!) We took full advantage of the Denver Botanical Garden's free day and went and saw tons of pretty flowers. Some flowers weren't in bloom yet, but there were more in bloom than I thought there would be! It was cold walking around and so we only saw 3/4 of the gardens before we hid in the Tropical Garden area! Scot's glasses (and my camera lens) fogged up immediately, so we just stood in the entrance waiting for things to simmer down a bit. Evan had a fun time watching everything and I had fun taking pictures. I can't wait for next month's free day when it's warmer out and there are more flowers!!!

Saturday night we had a dinner party with friends from church and that was tons of fun!! There were 3 babies between 6 and 9 months, it was fun watching them all. Evan just wanted the toys the other girls had and 2 of the older kids (almost 3 year olds) were being egged on by the much older kids (5-9) to kiss during dinner. It was pretty hilarious. There were some cute comments that only 2 year olds can make that had us adults laughing. Yesterday was very relaxing. My foolks dropped by really quick to say hi and see Evan before a nap. Scot and I watched Seven Pounds and we both really enjoyed it. It's not a feel good movie, but as I get older, I'm finding that I like real-life stories better, movies without obvious happy endings. Movies about redemption. Gladiator, The Patriot, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile, I could go on, but I won't. It's just something I noticed and the movie last night fit in perfectly with what I like.

Well that's about it for me....enjoy the pictures of the gardens!!

Happy Birthday....

...Dana!! And it's your golden birthday at that!! I hope you have an amazing day!!

For those of you who don't know what golden birthdays are, it's what happens when you turn a number on that number, like, my golden birthday was this last year because I turned 24 on the 24th.

just for fun

We went out on a walk and when we got back, I had a still awake boy who was just babbling to himself. He seriously babbled for the hour I was gone, it was amazing, I learned so much! ;) And the fact hat he didn't fall asleep was also great since we went right after lunch and I was sure he was going to konk out on me and ruin his afternoon nap - thankfully, that was not the case.


We've been busy the last few days. You'd think with Scot being gone I would have more time on my hands, and while that's true, I made sure I had a long to-do list for me to tackle while he was away. Tell ya what, with no husband around, I can get so much done!! I wouldn't want this permentantly, but seriously, I was able to spring clean like I had planned on a few weeks ago but never really got it done, I was able to take care of some returns, walk each day, write out about 30 recipe cards for a gal I know whose house burned down, set up wireless so Scot can now be in his office working and not have to be on the computer in the main area (YAY!!), totally wipe and defrag my laptop so it's not so slow so he won't have an excuse to get on the main computer, get the house ready for ladies coming over tonight for book club (we read the Glass Castle) and get questions set up. The list goes on, but that's what's at the top of my head.


DO you seem them>> Yes, I said them because there are 2 little teeth in that mouth now!! You have to kinda look hard for the second one, it just popped through this past weekend while I was at my folks. It was the funniest thing, mom said to me, oh, his other tooth popped through, and I just sat there in disbelief because there had been no warning! (which is a good thing, all things considered)

So Scot is about 2 hours from home right now (he feels like he did well on the test and he's just tired. 12 hours driving there Sunday, the test on Monday, and driving back today....I'd be tired, too!) and I have yet to prep for the cobbler I'm making for book club, shower, print off the questions I'm asking tonight in reference to the book, and do a quick tidy up of the kitchen before I go and mess it up again to make dinner!! Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Yes, I know he looks a little orange in them, and to tell you the truth, I didn't notice it until I downloaded the pictures!! It must be all the carotene he's getting in the carrots he gets almost every day...oops. Maybe I should cut back a little, or...maybe I should just let the sun take care of it and not have him completely covered up for the whole walk....hmmm....

ps...

...we're clapping, now!! Just thought ya'll should know!

no more snow!!!

We're forecasted to get some snow this weekend. Ugh. And since Scot has a test tomorrow morning that he'll be studying all night for (which means I won't get to see him) and he has a test Monday morning, of which he's driving out to Kirksville for, I'm headed down to the Springs, again, for a couple days. I'll be back in time to make dinner Saturday night and say goodbye to Scot Sunday morning, but that's about it. I'll post again on Monday, but I'm going into hibernation mode for the weekend!! :)

Easter weekend slideshow...

...here it is! Enjoy the blog (below) that goes with all the pictures!!

Easter weekend

Such a fun time we had! Evan and I headed down to Colorado Springs Thursday morning to spend some time with Grammy and Grandude! It had been a while since we'd been down there and so it was fun to catch up with some of my folks' neighbor's and good friends. We were quite busy during our jaunt down there, but it was totally worth it. We stopped by my dad's new office (he's chief of surgery now and has this huge office, and we had to meet his new 'office crew'). We had my mom's across the street neighbor's, the O'Briens, over for tea and sweet bread. They are like Evan's second grandparents! Every time we go tot he springs, we see them and they just love Evan to pieces!! And we love seeing the, they are British and always have such wonderful stories to tell us!

I was able to visit with my friend Trish at the Broadmoor, and all of Friday morning, Britt came over and we got to hang out and watch our two little ones 'play' together. It was a lot of telling Evan to be gentle and then it was a lot of sleeping. Which was fine for us - more time to talk uninterrupted! Evan had a lot of good one on one time with both Grammy and Grandude. My mom LOVES giving him a bath, so that's what she did along with playing with him and reading to him. Dad, well, he likes to rough him up and throw him around, so that's what they did. I was able to leave during Evan's second nap and make it home in time to get dinner going....

The weekend itself was really good. Scot and I hung out Friday night and while he studied Saturday, I got our Easter baskets out, filled them and shopped for Easter dinner. Easter morning (and day) was gray and overcast and it ended up raining. And while it stopped my from wearing the Easter dress I had picked out due to the unseasonable sleevelessness of it, we all decided to go matchy matchy for pictures sake. Haha - I should rephrase...I made sure I was matching Evan, and then I nicely told Scot that he should match us, too. Scot's Uncle, Dave, came to church with us and that was so nice!! We had Tommy and Bethany over for dinner and thankfully, everything turned out perfectly!! We were all quite content with our full bellies, but as almost anyone will tell you, there's always room for dessert - especially when it's blackberry cobbler with ice cream!

Some quick funnies, you'll see it in the slide show, but Scot brought home a huge cardboard roll that Evan loves to play with. He swings it and he blows into it and he tries to talk into it. He's figured out it can make funny sounds and he takes full advantage of it!! On Saturday, we all went to get the car washed...we did the whole $2 for 3 minutes and 20 seconds of do it yourself washing. Anyways, Evan freaked out. He was happily chomping on a cracker and all of a sudden he's looking around trying to figure out the noise. Well, I laughed and he lost it. Enjoy the slide show when I put it up!!

so big...

Evan now does 'so big' when you ask him! There are 2 new videos on his YouTube page for you to check out!!!

it's so easy!!

To be modest, that is! The teenagers, and moms for that matter, have it so much easier to be 'in style' as well as modest these days!! When I was in middle school and high school, it was all the rage to show show show - everything tight and low and short! And I just wish that it had been easier to be trendy. Anyways, here are some sites that a friend gave me as I wanted to be sure that I would be able to find longer shirts and layering type clothes when the fashion trend fades away. I thought I would pass them along to you. So here they are! One, two, three, and four!!

Uncle Dave's Birthday

Scot's Uncle Dave lives exactly 3 miles from us and we love it!! We don't see him nearly as much as we'd like to, but I think we're going to start having weekly dinners with him. We just need to figure out a night that works for all of us!! We had so much fun last night!! I baked him a chocolate cake and we had vanilla ice cream with it and just chatted. He had a lot of fun playing with Evan and he confirmed our thoughts that he's grown a ton in the last couple weeks! We're never quite sure how much Evan is growing since we see him every day, so like many of you, I'm sure, we rely on how clothes fit and what other people say in order to gain a better understanding of how he's growing. Anyways, we all had fun, which was the point. :) Here are some pictures! Enjoy...


Evan had a lot of fun playing with his great Uncle Dave!!


Make a wish!


The cute candles that weren't so cute after they were lit for, well, maybe 30 seconds...


A little boy with an ice cream smile...


Since it was his 9 month birthday, he got a bite of chocolate cake, too....


After a good bath, Evan was happy. Such a great picture!



Oh yeah, and about dinner....


Exhibit A: Hot and bubbly out of the oven...


Exhibit B: the sweet goodness was almost all polished off!!

It was fantastic, seriously, probably one of the best french toasts I've ever had, and definitely the best I've ever MADE! The wheat rolls didn't present a problem at all, it was so tasty. Better for a breakfast though, with fruit and eggs and such, it was a tad sweet for dinner time. Let me know if you want the recipe! If enough people want it, I'll post it, if not, I'll email it to ya!

I can't believe it's been 9 months....

...it seriously seems a lot shorter than that, but it is indeed true, Evan is 9 months old today!! We're having a good, day, too! We've cleaned and played and we're going to bake a cake!! It's Scot's uncle's birthday today and yesterday we decided that we needed to do something about it. So we're having him over for cake and ice cream tonight! I would usually invite him for dinner, too, but since dinner is a complete experiment, I thought it wasn't the best for a birthday dinner. Sometimes, just to mix things up, we have breakfast for dinner, and so that's what we're doing tonight. I had a lot of left over rolls from the Fellowship dinner this past Sunday and so I'm doing a baked french toast...with whole wheat rolls...with their tops cut off....see what I mean? Total experiment! Not only have I never made baked french toast, but the recipe calls for french bread, of which I'm fresh out! I'll let you know how it turned out. Well, here's a cute picture from just a few minutes ago...

Yup, he's on my mini-stair stepper!! I'm just going about doing my thing when all of a sudden it's really quiet, and then a squeal! Thankfully, I was able to get the camera in slow enough motion to not scare him and make him fall!! :D I don't even know how he got up there, but he did. He tried to get to the other step, but couldn't quite manage it....

Cutests Cloth Baby Shoes...EVER

While Evan is upstairs sleeping away, I decided to check all my friend's blogs. And while I must say that there weren't many updates from, ummm, yesterday, let alone April Fools surprises waiting for me like there were last year, I did happen to stumble upon this site to make your own baby shoes!! (The fact that I was on a friend's friend's friend's blog should tell you how bored I am right now. Yes, my house needs cleaning since I've been sick the last couple days, and I'll get to it since Scot won't even be home til almost 8, but I just don't feel like it right now.) Anyways, have fun all you who are creative and do things like this....I'm thinking of a few people in particular. And those of you who are like me and only wish you were this creative or brave to try something like this...try it, it looks pretty easy. Or, pass it on!