minor mommy accomplishments!

It's almost 8 am and Evan's still not awake...silly boy. Actually, I hear him stirring, but he's not quite there yet--apparently he was extra sleepy this morning. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I'm not quite sure what to do with myself, so I'll update you on the vegetable situation in our house. Yesterday....

(dramatic pause...wait for it...)

Evan ate carrot sticks. A lot of them. He loved them! In fact, when they were gone, he asked for more. I couldn't believe it. Carrots are one of those things that I keep giving to him over and over (with no success) with the hopes that one day he'll eat them and it finally paid off. Hopefully since he discovered that he likes one crunchy vegetable, he'll branch out to others too.

He's just getting so big, I can't believe it. He walks everywhere by himself now, which is good because he weighs 30 pounds and I don't really want to carry him around, and he knows he needs to hold my hand. He has his 18 mo checkup today, which I can't believe. I love taking him to his checkups and seeing how much he's grown since the last one...plus our doctor is kind of far away and we get to go to Subway for lunch afterwards. We don't have a lot of Subways around here--sad.

By now, Evan is talking to his stuffed animals, and occasionally saying "uhoh" because he dropped his binky behind his crib. I suppose we should get this morning started. Now I think he's singing. What a cutie!

Minor Miracles

It's no longer sunny. In fact it's snowed the past two days. Cody has been puking a lot, and I don't know why. On a brighter side, Evan ate kale yesterday--it was a minor mommy-miracle! Evan does not eat vegetables, so Mike and I were pretty amazed when he was obsessively eating kale last night. Hopefully he won't realize his mistake and refuse to eat it next time...maybe this is a doorway to a more refined palate? A mama can only hope.

And I made Evan hat (among other things) and I like it. It's a little big, but thats better than a little small. Looking forward to the weekend!

Greetings from sunny Massachusetts!

The most wonderful thing has happened! It's sunny! And warm! I'd say its at least 50 degrees outside. Which to me, feels almost tropical. I can't wait for Evan to wake up from his nap so we can go for a walk. Although right now, I am sitting on the couch in the sunshine with all the windows open and it is quite enjoyable. Aaah.

I didn't realize how little time we've been able to spend outside all winter, and now that it's sunny, I'm aware of how much I missed it. It's just so cold here in the winter--and now I'm really looking forward to spring. It was actually pretty nice this weekend, so we busted out Evan's wagon and went for a walk.

He loved it. He walked for a little bit, and stomped in some puddles, and got quite a kick out of riding in the wagon. The best way to travel, I guess. I'm just happy that it has seat belts in it so he can't bail out mid-ride. Or stand up. Because he would. These Radio Flyer people really know what they're doing! (thanks, Gamma!)

So, that's what we'll be doing again later this afternoon. Tomorrow, we're going to go to the Discovery Museum again--I knew we wouldn't be able to stay away for long!

By the way, we gave Evan a haircut again. He needed it--see?

Too long for this Air Force family! Definitely not within regulations. Now, keep in mind that we're still new to this "using clippers" business and with each haircut, we will get better. I think.

The "buzz" wasn't really the look we were going for, but it was a joint effort. I actually like it--although it makes him look much older and kind of catches me by surprise sometimes. No bald spots though--that's a plus.

Mike says that now Evan looks a lot like he did when he was little, which I totally agree with. Actually, Mike claims that he remembers Matt with hair like this during toddler-hood, so I guess he thinks Evan looks like Matt. Same thing though, right? Whaddya think Smith's--is he a mini Mike-or-Matt? I wish I knew how to use our scanner (I think we have a scanner) so I could add a baby pic of Mike, but you will just have to use your imaginations!

Now my sun has gone behind a few clouds. Bummer. It'll be back. I never thought I would like living in a warm climate (hello, Oregonian here) but now that we have the possibility of moving to somewhere in the upcoming year where it's warm most of the time (California, the Southwest, Florida), and after living in Massachusetts, It's looking more and more appealing. It would be weird not to have snow, but I think constant sunshine would even that out for me. Wherever we go will have pros and cons though, so bring it on!

Discovery!

Grandma Jean was here for the last week, and we had a great time. I think Evan was pretty happy to have a new playmate!

But now she's gone and Evan just has me for a playmate during the day...bor-ing. Poor little Evan, his life is so unfair...

Just kidding, Evan's pretty happy. He was especially happy when we took him to the Children's Museum in Acton this last weekend. This place is officially the coolest place for toddlers ever. It might be the coolest place for moms too...not only were we as entertained as Evan but I think he could have kept himself completely busy there all day. I'm in love. So is Evan.

And it's cheap too! We got a pass from the library that made addmittance only $4.50 each. I think we'll try to make a trip there once a month. At least. We are so lucky to live where we live.

One room was a ball room. There were tubes and tracks running all around the room and ceiling and you could watch the balls roll around and activate little doo-dads and thingys. My favorite part was this dark little hidey-hole with christmas lights in it. I wish I was small so I could just sit in there with the pretty lights. In fact, I found myself wishing I was about 3 feet shorter all day.

The entire attic of the house (did I mention the museum was in a cute little house?) was ship themed. Pretty awesome. They even had ocean sounds playing over some speakers. At one point I looked over and noticed that Mike and his ship-mate had taken up residence in this little life boat and I thought it was pretty funny. Silly daddy.

Another room was a diner and it was by far Evan's favorite. In fact I had to drag him out of there (literally) when it was time to leave. (he has since obtained a kitchen set at home) Evan and this other little guy spent quite some time serving their grandmas some food.

Pretty fun. I can't wait to go back.

Long Overdue

I have neglecting my blog, so to cut down on bulk lets post in bullet form, shall we? Ok.

We bought a pair of clippers this weekend and gave Evan his first at-home haircut. It went about as well as expected. Mike fed him cookies and kept him entertained while I cut. I was only able to get the back, (squirmy-wormy) but that's all he really needed and it turned out quite well. No more rat's nest hair!

Mike also vacuumed him.

On Sunday it snowed. Quite a bit. I took an unavoidable trip to the commissary in the snow and tried to avoid other crazy people--it went pretty well.

On Monday, a bird flew out of our basement. Into the living room. I screamed and hid with Evan in the bedroom. Mike calmly shooed it out the window. It was a giant bird, I swear... terrifying...It's still a mystery how that came about, as we couldn't find any obvious points of entry and we're still coming up with theories.

Evan yanked the "g" key off of the keyboard and I'm having a hard time typing.

Evan also has recently started to refer to his binky as "num-num", which I think is adorable. He also has been shaking his finger and saying "no no no" which is also adorable but kind of sad. And he likes to dump Cody's water dish on the floor. Sometimes he does those last two at the same time.

Doesn't he look naughty? He's cute though, so it's ok.

Also, I finally finished a case for my knitting needles, which I started two (or three?) weeks ago and didn't pick up again until yesterday.

It turned out perfectly, and now my needles are no longer a jumbled mess in the bottom of my knitting bag. I wish I had thought this up a long time ago.

For a knitting update--I started my boot socks on two circular needles and have been working on them intermittently. I had to start over a few times, and casting on made me physically ill--knitting with two circular needles was at first for me just knitting a tangled mess of pain and frustration--but now they are coming along quite nicely. And it turns out it's not so hard once you get the hang of it...

Believe it or not there's a budding pair of socks in there.

Once I summon up a serious amount of knitting energy I'm planning on making this:
The cardigan, in case you were unsure. It's name is Mr. Greenjeans, and one of these days I will be wearing it.

knit-errific!

Warning! This post will have absolutely nothing to do with Evan or anything else but knitting. continue if you dare!

I've been knitting. Constantly. It's nothing short of an obsession, but a wonderful, fun and productive obsession nonetheless. Therefore, I feel compelled to tell you ALL about it.

First of all, I've recently learned how to wind a ball of yarn. You'd think I might have figured that out prior to any knitting, but I was under the impression that it was difficult, so I never did it. Typical. It's easy peasy, and actually kind of soothing. And it makes my knitting oh so portable.


Beyond winding yarn balls , I've recently been excited about socks and slippers. They're so satisfying because they're relatively quick to finish, and I love warm cozy things!

This is my first sock. I don't like it because it's made of acrylic and feels weird, so alas, there is only one. But it was a good learning experience and I'm moving on to bigger and better things.

I'm planning on casting on a new pair of socks (wool, two at once!) tonight, but in the meantime I've been knitting slippers.

These are mine:

Don't worry--I actually made two--I just took a picture of one. They were knitted VERY large and felted, so they're very thick and warm. I don't know if they're done though, I might want to felt them again to make them a bit more snug...we'll see.

And these are Evan's:

(note: these aren't actually as huge as they look--just a close-up)
Actually, there's only one of these. (haha!) I got bored with the pattern and had to move onto something else, but it only took me a couple of hours, so he'll have two slippers soon. I think I'll felt these to fit as well. I wish I had used pretty colors, but he probably won't even wear them, so I just used what I had on hand. Maybe if he likes them, I'll make interesting ones.

Mike doesn't really wear slippers, so I haven't made him any. I might have to force some on him soon...

For Christmas, I made some catnip mousies. I'm not really a cat person, but I thought these were adorable, so I made them for my kitty friends. I had fun.


Also, I lied before--this post will have a picture of Evan. This is one of the pictures I ended up with while taking pictures of the mousie...he's so grabby!


You'd be amazed at how many pictures I have that look just like this. In fact, I took this one yesterday:
I was trying to take a picture of this coffee k-cup for our Keurig because I thought it was awesome. Most of them are pretty boring--not Donut Shop coffee! Unfortunately, the coffee was not so awesome. To Coffee People's credit, their Cowboy Coffee is my absolute favorite.
And that's what I've been up to. And will continue to be up to for the foreseeable future. In fact, this post has taken way too much time, and my socks are calling.

Maine-ly awesome

We drove to Maine yesterday, which may sound like a long trip, but keep in mind that the states are teeny out here so we only drove for two hours. Why isn't really important, but ultimately we felt like going on a little road trip and we ended up having a fantastic day. We took the freeway (tolls included, ugh) up to Scarborough, ME which ended up not being all that interesting. From there we took route 1 south down the coast which was an awesome drive. It was beautiful! We drove through so many adorable little towns and all we did was point things out to each other. "Look! a waterpark!" "The ocean!" "Maine's largest zoo and amusement park!" "Pretty house!" "Empty hotel!"

The empty hotels were wierd. In Oregon, there isn't really a beach "season" so people go to the coast all year long. As we drove through Maine, there was snow on the beaches and the bays were frozen, so there weren't really a lot of tourists. Needless to say, there were a lot of resorts and restaraunts that were closed for the winter. It was a little unsettling to realize that everything was unusually dead, but we loved the drive all the same.

We will be going back. I was especially intrigued by the towns of Ogunquit and Cape Neddick. Maybe we'll go there. Two other things I liked about Maine:

How easy it is to utilize the word "Maine" in a clever business title. ("Maine-ly Pizza, etc)

Lobsters. I saw a restaraunt called "A Lobster in the Rough" which I thought was hilarious. There were lobsters everywhere.

We had a great day, and we came home feeling like we had a good New England experience. At one point Evan got to ride in one of those little rides that likes to hang out outside of stores, which was definitely his favorite part of the day.

I think it's a chicken. Right? I don't know why. Evan seemed to love it. Good times.