clap on, clap off

we are all waiting with bated breath for evelyn's first steps. she has been "cruising" for quite some time now and even walking using her walker toy since her birthday but no steps yet. today she pulled herself up on sam and let go and just stood, balancing for a handful of seconds before sitting back down. we just stare at her like she's capable of doing a back flip or something radical. i can only imagine what we look like to "kid-less" people. laughable...i am sure. nonetheless, she is pure entertainment to us.

she started to clap a few days ago. she thinks it is the best thing since discovering her love of avocados and will clap spontaneously, usually when she realizes she's forgotten her newly found trick, and also on-demand. for some reason she didn't catch onto the clapping fad months ago when we started to try and teach her how - probably because i read it in some book that she "might/maybe/may/should be clapping" at this-or-that certain age and felt i should try to force her to learn to clap because the book said so. those books are almost bad in the sense that if your kid doesn't do the thing they say that they might or should be doing at certain months, you automatically think they are going to be the "special" kid that eats the paste in kindergarten.

moving right along...

i just love how inquisitive she is. she seems to ask questions with the sounds she makes when she looks at things, especially when she looks at pictures. she has this obsession with pictures. we point out people a lot to her - something i've been doing from very early on - and it is interesting to see how she studies the faces and can even point to certain people when you ask her to.

we've also been signing to her specific words like: eat/food, bath, mommy, daddy, etc. and its amazing how well she understands. she signs eat/food back every now and then but nothing on a regular basis yet. we can even finger spell certain words, without speaking/using a voice at all, and she knows what we are talking about. the first word that had been spelled out to her was the word fan. she knew what the fan was and where to locate it by looking up at it well before we started finger spelling it to her. after only a handful of times finger spelling the word, while saying the word, she was able to recognize f-a-n being spelled alone and look up for it. she did this before she turned 12 months. i was blown away. so we started to finger spell more words - words we use often like book and cat. the language development is just one of the most mind boggling, intensely incredible things about humanity to me. 

one of evelyn's favorite toys is the t.v. remote. she goes after those things like they are laced with crack or something. every day she seems to learn a new trick or maneuver and figures out how to get to things she couldn't days and weeks previous. sam tried to tuck the "daddy remote" in the drawer in the coffee table beside the couch because this line does not seem to matter to a 12-month-old; "This is Daddy's remote, not mo's." you're shocked that doesn't work, aren't you??? moments later, evelyn saunters over/crawls like a bat outa hell, pulls herself up, and, without much effort, manages to get the drawer open, pulls out the remote, raises it in the air with a grand smile on her face, looks at her father with that same smile and says, "uuhhHHHHH?!" yep. she's watching us alright. sort of like the aliens in that M. Night Shamalayayayayannnn movie. we often leave out a bunch of half-drunk water glasses too. not because we are lazy and don't clean up after ourselves... just to be prepared in case of alien invasion.

all that enter must wear green...

as promised, here are pics from evelyn's first birthday bash. we had a fantastic turn out and she had so much fun playing with everyone who came...especially the little boy babies who she tried to beat up. yep, we have THAT child.
and with no further ado...

the cake and some decorations

tasty cake, but king soopers should probably hire a new cake decorator.

banner and photo collage

rainbow with pot of gold made of fruit. this was my other baby. so proud

lucky charms are tasty treats

the spread

tasting her special birthday cake and lovin' it.

taking a break to read a little.

reading from her new book

crab crawl over the book

gimme that, daddy

walking with her new toy.

evelyn with honey and pa

realizing we forgot to take pictures after we changed from our outfits

happy birthday to our little shamrock baby

this blackberry lovin' maniac

remembering this week of my life last year is pretty bitter-sweet. sometimes more bitter than sweet. i often refer to it as "hell week" because in many ways, the many ways leading up to evelyn's actual arrival, was nothing less than one of the worst experiences i've ever endured. i hear about many women who have absolutely wonderful birthing experiences and recovery periods and that they look fondly upon that time of their life. i have a tendency to disbelieve such stories just because mine was so disappointing. there are many things about the week that led up to evelyn's birth that still upset me to this day. it is easy to say, "i wish i had done this differently, trusted my body more, listened to the drs insisting i be induced less..." but despite all that i felt went wrong, and most of it went wrong, i did get to go home (eventually, and after being admitted 3 separate times on 3 separate days) with a blue eyed, pale skinned, bald little baby girl. and because of that i am one of the lucky ones, one of the blessed- beyond-measure ones, and for that i am thankful.

i belive God intends for us to learn from the things in our life. He also allows us to experience the things we do for reasons....sometimes for reasons we may never understand while we walk this earth. i'm not sure why i had to go through what i did and feel bereft of memories i should have had because i ended up having a c-section, and was so doped up i couldn't remember the night evelyn was born. everone else seems to have memories of her birth night but i don't. my memory is not having memory. but i am blessed to have a husband who can help me fill in the gaps. and he does...quite often.

i know how cliche it is to say, "it was worth everything i went through." i don't like being cliche and have a tendency to dodge behind the bushes when cliche is walking toward me. but it was worth it. every bit of it.

and in two days we will have a one-year-old blackberry lovin' maniac. happy birthday, mo. we just love ya.

birthday lolapaloooooza is COMING! mark your calendars!

in honor of evelyn turning ONE on st. patties day this year we have decided to throw her an all-things-green lolapalooza! we just had to do it. i know she won't remember and no, she won't get to taste any of her cake - scoff and gasp if you must - so really this bash is more for us than her. and if our memories hold up over the coming years, as we hope the many pictures i anticipate taking will, then i have no doubt this party will be a blast-n-a-half.

i went to one of those party central stores this past weekend to pull together the last of the decorations. it took great strength and a shallow pockets to keep me from buying up everything i saw despite the spirited employee who kept harassing me while i browsed. yes, she did harass me and even convinsed me to get a banner. its pretty fantastic, though, i can't lie.

truthfully i wish this party was yesterday because i just am itching to decorate, put out all kinds of green food and see evelyn in her green tutu outfit. not much is cuter on a little girl baby than a tutu.

yesterday and today we had a photo session in hopes of capturing the essence of our little inquisitive charmer. since pictures are dang expensive these days, and we now are the proud owners of a brand new camera, i figured i'd give it the ol college try. i will warn you in advance: evelyn is not the "lets sit and look all doe-y eye'd into the camera and not move" type of child. maybe number 2 will be. (NO,we're not expecting) she is busier than most bees every single day and today was no exception. so these pictures are now brought to you out of a little sweat, tears, exasperated sounds and words....PG stuff only, of course....ENJOY!

happy

meltDOWN

always proppin' a leg

what i feel like she is doing...

new camera, new learning curve

we got a new camera! it is very nice, veeeeery fancy and we've yet to take the time to really figure out how to work it properly. most of the pictures i have taken are blurry because our soon-to-be one-year-old daughter doesn't care a snit to stop and pose for a picture. she'd prefer to be in an ever-constant state of motion, and the pictures reflect that by being a bloody, blurry mess. so i have taken the time to choose for you, dear reader, the best of the batch. we aren't photographers and that is evident. with no further explanation...enjoy...

oh, you're watching me...again.

there you are, swarley! how did you get up here?

i luv me a good book. *for rona*

close up

do you like apples as much as i do, mom?

you don't? i'm appalled!

oh! you were kidding?!

tell me the truth!

oh, good! i'm SO glad you were kidding. apples rock!

oh look what i found. i can reach it, watch me.

early birthday toy: elefante. we loooove elefante.

tennessee in february is nice and cool

Well we just got back from our trip to Tennessee on a food crawl, i mean to visit Sam's family. but partially that is true...we were on a food crawl and DANG was that food good! i managed to leave evelyn's favorite book on the plane. the only book she will actually not turn her eyes from when we read it to her and look at the book stack! go me. i guess i'm going to have to find another copy of it since it was given to us when she got her 6 month shots.

now let me just say this. traveling with a baby is hard core. it is no lazy-sunday-afternoon-nap-on-the- couch. it is messy and chaotic at best. and i'm sure we received many a glance of insanity on our journey to and fro. the flight from denver to nashville was the most challenging because we had woken early, and when i say early i mean the sun wasn't even warm yet, gotten to the airport about 4 hours too early and had to keep evelyn awake so she would "pass out" as we took off. not.so.easy. this girl is high energy all the live long day. me being the slight germ-a-phobe that i am (at least i'm honest) i wouldn't let her crawl on the ground in the airport. yeah, i didn't. so by the time we got onto the plane she was a ball of tired, figity and limitless energy. now there is just something about "tired" energy that is more of a challenge than "i've slept great" energy. so we are sitting in our seats and the pilot comes on to tell us they have a minor issue with the left wing's de-icing whatever that needs to be fixed. now let me just say that all it takes for me to lose any logic or level-headedness that i may possess is to hear a pilot tell me something needs to be "fixed" on a plane i'm about to strap myself to. so we are sitting like sardines in an stuffy, non-airconditioned airplane sweating like its mid-july in the south. i am holding evelyn who is trying desperatly to free herself from my lap, grab the poor, unsuspecting woman's hair in front of us, touching everyone who passes by, and, you know, giving me a run for my money. blissful, really. it was just a fantastic start to our little vacation. but we weren't going to let it ruin the day or the trip.

a few minutes later the pilot came back on and said they had fixed the problem and we were ready to go. WAAAHOOO. so we begin to pull back from the gate. stop. pull back up. huh?! the pilot comes back on and says, "um, we have another small issue that needs to be fixed. we will let you know when it gets fixed and then we will be on our way." oh.no.jesus. there is still no air conditioning and now evelyn is screaming bloodly murder because she has been confined to car seats, strollers, arms and laps for somewhere around 5 hours. we have become "those people."  you know which ones i'm referring to. those people who have a screaming baby in an airplane/restaurant/insert your own small and confined space here. thankfully we had nice people around us who didn't give us grief or the stink eye but tried to makes faces at our rosy-cheeked, exhausted baby. bless them.

well the pilot comes back on and tells us that one of the engines WON'T start so they have to do it manually with some machine. REALLY? um, is it too late to get off this ride??? i look to sam and say, "well at least if we die we're all going to heaven together!" that was the only upside i was seeing. so three attempts later at starting the engine (and if you've never witnessed this, and i hope you haven't, you must know that the sound it makes is something kin to a siren and a very unnerving sound!) we were good-to-go! ha! it had been a solid hour and we were finally pulling away from the gate. shortly after take-off evelyn was asleep and i was breathing again. i think i stopped breathing for a solid fifteen minutes.

but we landed, had a great trip. saw lots of family and some friends. we are SO blessed. it just wasn't long enough, it really wasn't. while in Memphis, evelyn got her first black eye. yep. she managed to pull a t.v. tray down onto her face. i'd post a pic but my camera has crapped out on me.

we do love our tennessee. it is where we met and started our life together. it is where evelyn was born. and it still feels partially like home. maybe it always will.

to all that housed, fed and loved on us, we are so thankful and our hearts are full! we love you, miss you and think of you often. you're worth every bump of travel that it takes to see your faces. we will be back soon.

all things evelyn

i've been slacking a bit on my posting. sorry. life gets a little away from me sometimes. it seems cliche to say, "i've been busy" even though i have been, but who isn't busy these days anyway? i would love to update with some pictures but my camera has recently crapped out on me. that is unfortunate.

lately...evelyn is "cruising." for those of you who aren't familiar with the term it means she holds onto things (like the couch) and walks. we keep waiting for her to take a first step.

she is currently recovering from a stomach bug and has thrown up on and off for the past three days. we are hoping she will be "vomit free" from today on out. makes me think of Ted, on How I Met Your Mother, who prided himself on being "vomit free since '93." if only that were even true for me!

it amazes me how much more evelyn seems to "come to life" every week and month that passes. this especially amazes me between the hours of 5 and 6 a.m. when she relentlessly wakes up every.single.morning regardless of when we put her to bed.

she has learned to climb the stairs, respond to sign language, fight us at nap and bed times, and even say "kitty." she loves cheerios, cheese, avocado, pears, bananas, sweet potatoes and her Tennessee pillow pet, Smokey, who she will crawl to and lay her head down on and smile with wild abandon when you ask her, "where's smokey?"  then, you must say, "awwww, sweet smokey," as she holds keeps her head down on him. it is the CUTEST thing i think i've ever seen!

every time she plays a note on her little piano she looks to us for approval and we clap and cheer. sometimes this will go on for a very long time. she has also taken to "dancing" when any kind of music is played, be if from the radio, one of her toys, or a t.v. show. she is a riot, and every day is a mini-adventure.

and soon, very soon, she will be a year old...how did we get here so fast? time flies when you aren't getting any sleep! cheers! and happy saturday.