Stats

Evan's 2 year stats:
34 inches/25th % -- 26.6 lbs/33rd %

Drew's almost-4-month stats:
26 inches/67th% -- 14.8 lbs/52nd %

Post-relapse

For those interested in our adventures in potty training, I have an updated post on the Potty Training blog. No, I have not been potty training this entire time. haha. But we did have a little relapse where I ended up having to take a day to re-train him. But, the big news? We've been accident free (again) for 4 weeks now!

Pittsburgh

I know these are a little late, but here are a few pictures from our weekend in Pittsburgh with my friend Leah and her little girl, Anna! You'll see how much Evan and Anna got along... :)

They make a cute couple, don't they?


Kissey, kissey!


We had so much fun! We'll have to get together again soon.

Yellow

Yellow is Evan's favorite color. I think because School Buses are yellow. When I served Evan eggs this morning and he ate them all and kept saying "yum" -- I asked him why he liked them so much.

His answer: Yellow!

I guess he really does like yellow.

A Pillow Fixes Everything

Evan's imagination has been exploding of late. The other day he took a cup-like toy and he came up to me and offered me tea, coffee, water, milk and lots and lots of juice. After each sip, he would run to a corner of the playroom and magically refill the "cup". It was too cute.

Just this morning, I had the cutest doctor ever taking care of me.

Evan's new thing is "going to work" like his daddy. He recently discovered that daddy is a doctor. Here is our conversation this morning, me sitting on my bed with Drew, and Evan near the door.

E: Bye bye
Me: Where are you going?
E: Work
Me: Ok. Have fun (he closes the door, runs somewhere, and then re-opens the door)
E: (Opens door) Hi!
Me: Oh! You're back! How was work?
E: Good.
Me: What did you do?
E: Work.
Me: Oh right. Silly question. Well, do you take care of people at work?
E: Yes.
Me: Are you a Doctor?
E: Yes. Daddy work.
Me: You're right. That's what daddy does. Are you going to take care of mommy?
E: Yes.
Me: You should take my temperature. (At which he lays a hand on my arm)
E: Warm
Me: Oh, that means mommy's sick (I'm not really) I think mommy needs some medicine.
E: Memin (He couldn't say it)
Me: Yes. Mommy needs some pills.
E: Oh. (Looks around) Pills! (he leaves, saying 'bye bye', and goes to the door that leads up to the playroom. He comes back and I look up to see him holding a bright red pillow)
E: Pillow!
Me: (laughing) Yes, that's a pillow and will help mommy feel better.



Oh, the imagination of a 2 year old.

Drew-boy

Brothers

Evan at 3 months


Drew at 3 months




And are you ready for this??


Evan at 2 months

Drew at 3 months (big blue eyes still!)

And people tell me they look nothing alike. They just can't get past the hair, I guess.

IKEA

I escaped to Pittsburgh this past weekend to visit a friend from college whose husband is also starting his first year of residency. We had great fun and our kids played so well together. Pictures and more on that later. :) While there, though, I made a quick stop in to IKEA. Oh. My. Goodness. Never have I had to exert so much self control and stick to my list! I did get a $5 Wok (on sale), and a $4 bath-mat as extras, but otherwise, I was so good!

On my list was a train set for Evan. He received some money for his birthday and I couldn't figure out what to get him, and then it hit me! When we ask him at night what his favorite part of the day was, his typical answer is something silly like "cup" or "nap" or something that he is looking at right then or something that doesn't make much sense. But, when we have played with Colin and with his train set, the answer is always "choo choos"! So there was my answer, and IKEA had the solution!

Since this picture was taken, he has spent hours quietly playing with it. To say he loves it would be an understatement.

Through the Wringer

While loading clothes from the washer to the dryer last week, I found this little guy (originally Scot's from when he was a kid!) at the bottom of the washing machine. Evan must have put him in his pocket! We were just glad he made it 'through the wringer' without getting hurt!

What the Camera Didn't Capture

There have been so many times this past week I was just kicking myself for not having the camera swinging around my neck. But seriously, who does that? It would get wet when I clean the kitchen, it would bonk Drew on the head when I change him, it would probably just plain get busted the first day I wore it. Since I don't make a habit of having it within arms reach 24/7, there are a lot of moments that get missed or are just too fleeting to capture even if I did wear it like a necklace.

• Brother love - I just love it when Evan goes up and kisses Drew on the legs or feet, or cheeks
• Brother care - when Drew cries, Evan now looks at me and says "nap!" or "eat" or "poop!" -- tell ya what, the kid has it down!
• The pool! We all went to the pool with friends yesterday and Evan had a blast in his make-shift swim trunks that ballooned around him when he went in. Poor kid didn't understand the "adults only" whistle and I had a hard time explaining it to him. We went to the park instead (right outside the pool) and he and his new friends ran around there and in the big open field.
• Ice cream faces!
• Friends -- seeing Evan play with new friends is just heartwarming for me
  
• Sleeping boys, in the same room, all night long.
• Drew discovering his hands and grabbing on to things, like my cheeks.
• Drew's many many facial expressions (this definitely falls into the 'fleeting moments' category!
  
• Daddy time -- so rare it seems right now, I just want to remember the squeals of delight when Scot actually gets home before Evan goes to bed, or the few moments he actually gets to hold Drew in between walking in the door and me pushing a hot plate in front of him after a 14/15 hour day.

I'm sure there are more things that the heat is making me forget at the moment, but you get the picture. Life is starting to fill up, I'm cultivating friendships, I'm in a routine, and I'm taking each day as it comes. With 2 little guys and no big guy to help, it can be a challenge at times, but I'm getting used to it and we're doing just fine.

Totally Random

I let Evan have a graham cracker with a very light coat of left-over frosting from his cake -- needless to say, the cracker got licked, not eaten.


My Morning Glories have finally blossomed! There are more and more every day, aren't they beautiful?


Jared flew his first Helicopter the other day and I put Drew in his 'chopper' shirt for the occasion.


I tell ya what, getting both boys looking, still, and smiling at the camera is quite the challenge. Drew doesn't smile on command yet, and anytime you say his name, Evan turns to look at him. I think I took about 30 pictures between yesterday and today to try and get a good one and this is the best I could do -- and I love it.

New Videos

Can you tell I've had an entire nap period all to myself? I've not only upload pictures, re-sized them, emailed them, blogged with some of them, but I also downloaded 2 new videos my friend Jamie took of our boys over the last 2 weeks. You can find them here -- enjoy!

Just another reminder...

...that if you want to 'follow' this blog and get notified when I've updated, just follow my updates blog instead where I let you know when I've put new stuff up!

Post 400

I would just like to say thank you to whoever is reading this. It is because of you that I write. It is because of your interest in our life and my thoughts that I share what is going on. So thank you. I can't believe I've written 400 posts from the start (Jan 2008). Since then, you've watched me get big due to pregnancy twice, you've seen me bud as a cook and travel to the cooking blog, you've seen the boys grow, you've seen us move -- twice -- you've seen me freak out and get excited and cry. I know it's just technology, but I do feel closer to you all some how. I love that I can just 'let out' and write what's going on and sometimes what I'm feeling. So thank you for being there, thank you for reading and walking/reading along side our journey through life.

Socks

Evan is now into socks as well as shoes. Shoes still take precedent, but he got into Scot's sock drawer this past weekend...

Trying to get them on...


Look mom -- they fit so well!

Name tags

I would just like say that I think everyone should wear name tags so people like me aren't confused when I go to Play and Learn or church and try to make new friends. I want to know if the person I'm talking to is a nanny or a mom. And if she's a mom, I want to know if she's only home because she works part time, or works during the year as a teacher. And if she's a stay-at-home mom, can I get a feel on if she has any sort of religious bent? Or how about if she's even looking for a new friend herself? If we really did wear name tags, mine would look like this:

Sarah
Full-time stay-at-home-mom
Christian
Looking for friends

The 4th

We celebrated the 4th by doing nothing in particular. We sweat a lot due to the sweltering temperatures and no AC units. There were lots of tears and a firm resolution to go out the next morning and buy some window units for the bedrooms and dig the old AC unit out of the basement to see if it worked for the living room area.

I'm happy to say that the bedroom window units work marvelously, and while the first heavy AC unit didn't work (of which we didn't find out until we had washed it and heaved it into the window), the second one did. So we're at least a little cooler now. But temperatures of 95 with 80% humidity is pretty hard to beat. I'm looking forward tot he supposed thunderstorm in tomorrow's forecast to cool things down!

So our official 4th was not so fun. Especially since someone down the road had an on-again-off-again fireworks show from about 10-midnight which kept waking and scaring Evan to bits. I totally caved and went in to sleep on his bed from about 11:30 to 12:30 so that I wasn't getting in and out of bed so much. I realized at some point that my getting sleep much outweighed my desire to be consistent and not start a bad habit -- and no bad habit started -- he slept just fine the next night. We all did thanks to the magic of the AC!

But on the 5th, we celebrated. We bought the AC units, Scot just hung out with us (he had off), and we went over to our friends, Jack and Jamie's, for a BBQ with some of their family and other neighbors. It was a blast. The boys all had fun and us adults enjoyed good conversation, grilled burgers with all the typical BBQ sides, and Pina Coladas!

The boys playing in the water-table


My first ever Lychee -- or Asian grape as Jack called it!

Enjoying his virgin Pina Colada


Sweet sprinkler that Colin and Evan discovered they could drink from


Cake face!

3 Months!

His 3 month shot!

Don't know his stats, yet, but they're coming. I know he's 24 inches, but I have no idea on his weight. I do know that he's wearing clothes that Evan wore when he was close to a year old, though! He is cooing like crazy, laughing on his own, adoring his brother, sleeping great (still!).

Sweet and smiley...

Celebration day 3

Saturday we celebrated Evan's birthday as a family. Scot came home mid-morning after having not slept a single wink the night before, but was a great sport and stayed awake for us to open presents before he crashed. Evan was so excited about his 'new' backpack (it was Jared's when he was a kid), his stickers, and the Trash Truck. :) Other gifts included more educational things like place mats with numbers, colors, ABC's, and shapes on them, and an Alphabet puzzle. We made Evan's favorite pizza for dinner and then had his little friends over for cake and ice cream.

Evan sneaked a cookie while I was frosting his cake, little stinker!


His green dirt-truck, per his request


Opening our card to him -- it had stickers in it.


New sunglasses for the birthday boy


Birthday shoes from Uncle J and Aunt Madeline


Blowing out the candles!


Yum yum!


Colin, Evan, and Howie (or Wowie as Evan says) -- best buds

Celebration Day 2

Evan's actual birthday had to be celebrated without Scot around as he was on-call and was not able to come home. We still had a good day, though, and knew we would celebrate the next day as a family.

Thursday night, I had put together Evan's Retro Red Radio Flier tricycle - a gift from his Great Grama Hilda - and 'hidden' it under a table in the play room. When I say hidden, what I mean is that I tucked it up there and since it's not an area he really looks toward (or so I thought), I figured I would get away with not having him see it until Saturday. Wrong. He was up in the play room for less than a minute before I heard a very excited little voice calling out "Bike! Bike! Bike!" And that was it. I had to use the trike as a bribe in order to get him to eat his breakfast and get dressed for the day and once on that thing, he did not want off!




A friend from VA, Katherine, came for a short visit and brought her 2 youngest boys who happen to both be exactly 6 months older than my boys. We all had a blast playing and catching up (she was in town visiting her in-laws who live about 45 minutes from here). Evan and Jackson had a blast playing together, and Katherine and I laughed at our two little chubby boys!




After nap, we went down the street to Colin's to play with his water-table. I really should look into getting one of those, they loved it. Jamie and I got to chat and enjoy the beautiful day out in their back yard. After a quick bite of dinner, I took Evan to Mitchell's Ice Cream where we met up with some new friends, Haley and Justin (another new resident), who made the outing seem more special. Evan had a blast and slept great!

Miracle

We had a miracle happen at our house on Thursday, but let me first back up.

On Wednesday morning, I went out to our front porch to get ready to walk and looked toward the corner where we keep our stroller tucked, but there was no stroller to be found. I figured this was bound to happen, but it still bothered me. Who takes kid stuff?! Seriously?!

I still walked, though, I heaved the Sit n Stand around only one 2-mile loop and became ever more grateful for my double jogger that was now gone. What I also realized was gone along with the stroller was Evan's colorful blanket that was made for him, a cute hat I got for a steal at GAP last summer, my favorite nalgene with my Red Bar sticker from my week at the beach with RUF in college, a paci, a book, and some snacks.

Thankfully, my mother, while she was here, told us that nobody would steal a stroller, and while I would have liked to agree with her, I respectfully disagreed, but to prove her point, she said that if our stroller did get taken, she would replace it. So Wednesday afternoon I called her to see how serious her offer was. I'm happy to report that I was able to find another stroller (a better one, even) on Craigslist and will, Lord willing, pick it up tomorrow -- using my mother's money.

Now back to the miracle. On Thursday afternoon, my neighbor, Angela, called me to tell me she had seen a plastic bag on the corner while walking her dog, and out of this bag she saw our blanket! Along with the blanket was my nalgene and the GAP hat! Guess the thief needed the paci, board book, and snacks.

The 'returned' items along with our Praise Book that we use to record all these little miracles

Celebration Day 1

On Thursday, we decided to go to the zoo in early celebration of Evan's birthday. It was a perfect day for the zoo -- cool and slightly breezy. People tell me it's what fall feels like, so I think I'll like fall here. We went with friends and had a blast. Favorite exhibits were the Giraffes, Wolves, and Dinosaurs (as long as we stayed in the stroller!) The zoo wasn't much bigger than Denver's, but it was prettier with so many large trees and beautifully paved walkways.

The Dinosaurs were, by far, the coolest exhibit ever. The replicas moved their heads and tails, gnashed their teeth, and hissed or growled as you passed -- they even blinked and twitched their eyes! Needless to say, it was a bit much for Evan. He enjoyed looking at them, but when I got him out so my friend Margi could take a picture of us in front of the Brontosaurus (the Dinosaur he had on his shirt), he sort of wigged out.

We made a nice dinner in honor of Scot finishing his first day and in honor of Evan's last day being one.

Happy Birthday, Evan!

Pictures of the weekend celebrations to come!