Thursday, September 30, 2010

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!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

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!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

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. :)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

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!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

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!

Monday, May 10, 2010

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?

Thursday, May 6, 2010

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!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Best. Weekend. Ever.

Guess where we went this weekend?



Need another hint?






You betcha. We went to the Mouse's House.



Fun was had by all.




More to follow.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Blog Post.

Life is good here--as usual.


Ella is getting so big! She's already sleeping through the night (from abt. 10 to 7ish), which I can't believe. Evan didn't sleep through the night until he was about six months, so I am considering myself very, very lucky. Thank you Ella.

We went to the California Poppy Reserve last weekend, which was amazing. It is just miles and miles of orange poppies, as far as you can see--the air smelled so good! The Antelope Valley (where we live) is pretty brown and boring (to me) so it was quite a treat to get to experience all the flowers. Evan had a great time exploring, especially once he discovered how many lizards and beetles there were to find. He's become quite the little insect finder! Luckily, he's terrified of touching most of them, so that's helpful for me. Ella wasn't too excited about having her picture taken (especially with Evan holding her).

Evan has become very imaginative, and he's getting really good at thinking up games and activities for himself. The other day, he decided that he wanted to make "ench-ladas" (he loves enchiladas!) and made this concoction:

It consisted of a tortilla, mayo, kraft singles, applesauce, cinnamon, raisins, chocolate chips, Kix, and sprinkles. Lots of sprinkles. He got everything out of the fridge, asked for the things he couldn't reach, and told me what he was making. In the end, he only ate the raisins, choc chips and a few Kix. And lots of sprinkles. He had a really good time.

When I showed Mike the pictures, the first thing he said was "what is he wearing !?". I will have you all know that he is wearing my apron, not a skirt. Must be properly dressed for cooking!


Although I guess it wasn't really necessary to continue wearing it for bubble-blowing later...

Yesterday, he took all (all) of the dishes out of the cupboard and placed them all neatly on the counter with cups and silverware. He told me he was setting out dishes for Mama, Daddy and Grandpa. Thank you. Like I said, he's getting really good at entertaining himself!

Tomorrow, Ella and I are going to the outlet mall with some girlfriends, and Evan gets daddy to himself all day! So far I've heard that the day will involve bug-finding expeditions and learning about dinosaurs. Excitement for all!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

I hope our camera survives...

Evan has been really excited about taking pictures lately, and he's finally figuring out how to point the camera and take pictures of actual things.

He took this picture the other day while we were talking to Gamma and Poppa on Skype, and I think it's really neat. I love how you can see him at the bottom of the screen taking the picture. What a little photographer!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Yes, I leaked a few tears.

I have been watching videos of Evan for the better part of the last hour. (wait, how did I end up with an hour to myself? Amazing, I know.) I had forgotten how little and chubby he was! Now he's such a big boy and I'm so glad that we took so many little thirty second videos.

I could watch them all day, so I thought I'd put one on here just to remind everyone how quickly they grow up.


And here he is today! Well, yesterday.

We had to have an indoor easter egg hunt due to the constant wind. ugh. It would probably be 75 degrees here if it weren't for the wind chill provided by our 30 mph winds...Evan was more interested in finding the eggs with candy in them than actually collecting them--he would pick one up, break it open, and move on if it wasn't candy. He only had eggs in his basket because I stuck them in there! He ate a lot of candy and it was a good easter.

Back to the videos, I vow to continue to take loads of videos of our kiddos as they grow up, because I don't want to forget one minute of their amazing childhood.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Just a few pictures...











Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Which is which?


Ella had her first tub bath yesterday, and amazingly we remembered to take pictures!

Looking at her pictures made me need to look at the pictures of Evan's first bath, since they were exactly the same age, and it confirmed for me that they look just alike. So much so, that I'm getting confused while i'm trying to add pictures to this post.
So, which is which? Do you know? Not fair if you can tell by which kitchen they're being bathed in!