kind of still here. A little bit.

As you can probably tell, I just don't have any spare time anymore! I would love to keep up with this blog more regularly, but I just don't get enough time to myself to keep it updated. For now, here's some pictures to share.

The national anthem plays here every day at 4:30, and Evan loves it. Usually. Most of the time he'll run outside and stand like this. If he's in a bad mood he'll go outside and run in circles yelling until I drag him inside.

Ella is just the cutest thing ever.

Evan occasionally enjoys having a patient who won't go anywhere to use his doctor's kit on!

Seriously. How cute is she?

We enjoy having her smiley little face around. She is always smiling, and we call her "sweetness"

Ugh. Mike used my beloved vacuum cleaner to catch a mouse that he had cornered in the hall closet. A really good solution to the problem, and very exciting, but really, my Dyson? Needless to say, he was extremely proud of himself. Also, we seem to have won the war with the mice inside the house!

We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific recently (lame compared to the Oregon Coast Aquarium!) and Evan loved it! This is him pretending to be a starfish. He is a very smart, very funny, very sweet little boy!

Mike's been taking Evan with him in the stroller when he goes running lately, and Evan really enjoys stretching with him. Cody's just waiting for the leash to come out!

Big time stuff!

Well, Evan is a big boy now. He's been using the potty, and he's been doing a really good job! All week he's been diaperless around the house, and he's been going to the potty all on his own and going pee. He's only had one accident, and I think that was just because he wanted to see what would happen! Today, he did #2 in the potty AND used the big toilet. I can't believe it! On top of that, we've gone out on errands a few times and not only has he stayed dry, but today he used (successfully) the bathroom at the BX.

We are so proud! And I think he's pretty proud of himself. Wish us luck on our potty journey!

On vacation but...

We had a family photo shoot (that sounds fancy, doesn't it) with Matt, Nova and Isla at Avery Park in Corvallis a few days ago. Our photos aren't ready yet, but our photographers posted a few on their blog. (click here to see) Take a look! I can't believe how amazing these photos are, and I don't know if i'm going to be able to handle it when we get the rest of them!

I would definitely recommend Blue Castle Photography to anyone in the Corvallis, Oregon area. Also, check out M&N's amazing wedding photos too. By the way, if you don't already know how Matt and Nova are related to us, just check out the photos and I bet you can figure it out. :)

As if I needed a reason to love my son any more...

He is my little cleaner.

It's just water, but the window's cleaner than it was!

He had a blast getting this paper all over the floor, and maybe even more fun cleaning it up! He loved to sweep and use the dustpan.

I'm going to milk his love of cleaning for as long as I can. What a helpful boy you are, Evan!

Hello!

Oh I know. Where have we been? Having fun, and there's never enough time to sit down and get it all down! We've been busy (in a good way), so I'll give you another condensed blog post.

We went to our first baseball game here, to see the Lancaster Jethawks. It was really cold and extremely windy, so we only made it to the fourth inning. We had fun though, and we'll definitely be going to many more games--although pretty soon it's going to be to HOT to go!

I think Ella was by far the coziest of us all.

We finally made it to the beach here (by here, I mean California) and had a blast! The drive wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, and it only took us two hours. Not bad, for a day trip. We went to Leo Carillo state beach in Malibu (sounds fancy--wasn't), and found that the water was too cold to spend much time in, but had fun making sand castles.

The weather was warm but foggy when we arrived...

And absolutely gorgeous when we left!

Cozy baby, again!

We enjoyed a fabulous memorial day with good friends and good food (both a must). Fun was had by all!

She may be little, but Ella's proud to be an American!


I hope you all took a moment to remember those who have sacrificed for our country, and to say a little prayer for those who continue to put themselves in harms way for our freedom--if not, feel free to do so now!

I'll wait.

Moving on, Evan is not the biggest fan of vegetables--but we've been having small breakthroughs. Mainly, we force him to eat them. However, he has recently discovered that he likes "cracking peas" (as he calls it) and loves to eat sugar snap peas.

Gives me hope.

It's in the 90's here now, but still windy. Hot and windy...confuses me. Far better than cold and windy though. Somehow I don't think those temps will be going down anymore...wish us luck for our first summer in the desert!

Happy Mother's Day!

I got the best mother's day gift ever!

Evan sat down with his markers and paper and drew this all by himself--all the while saying "it's mama! It's mama!".

I didn't really believe him until I looked and saw that he had drawn an actual (as far as two year olds go) person! I'd never seen him draw anything like that all by himself before, so I was really proud. Great job Evan!

Aren't they the cutest?

Disney!

So, we went to Disneyland. And it was wonderful!

First thing we did was stop at Foster's Freeze to feed Mike's addiction for their chocolate shakes.

The second thing we did was clean the milkshake off of Evan after he squeezed it and the top came off. So much for sharing!

It took us a little over 2 hours to get to Disneyland (with traffic, but I don't think there's ever not traffic) and our hotel was right outside the gates to the park. Not a bad price either, and we could see the fireworks from our room! I think that was one of Evan's favorite parts.

The first morning we went to Storybook land (I know thats not what it's called, but Mike keeps calling it that, and now I can't remember!) and Evan was super excited about Monstro the Whale. So, Mike and Evan went on the boat ride and it was ride after ride after that! He even went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which Mike and I were glad we got to go on.

Evan got to meet lots of Disney friends (Mickey was his favorite) and had a really great time. He was really excited about every thing that we did, but when we left and we asked him what his favorite part was, he said "the train"--meaning the Monorail. Go figure.

He seemed to really enjoy this lollipop too.

Ella slept most of the time, but when she was awake there was a lot that captured her attention and she was really happy. Babies are so easy and portable at this age!

Even Evan caught a few naps (thankfully!).

We had such a wonderful time, and I can't wait to do it again! We'll probably skip California Adventure next time, because there wasn't really a lot there that Evan was interested in. That just means more time at the Magic Kingdom! It was so fun going with Evan because we got to see things that we'd never seen before, and it was great to watch him experience it all for the first time.

We are so lucky to be able to move around and be so close to neat things like Disneyland. I'm glad that we have four years to experience all the other fun things that are in California--and go to Disneyland a few more times!