9 months!

This post is a little late, but our girl is 9 months old!! It's unbelievable to me that it's already been 9 months since Evie was born. She's the sweetest baby girl and we absolutely love her to bits! I've love to write more, but a certain little miss is demanding my attention. So until next time...

Battle wounds

In the battle of the crib, it's Crib 1, Evie 0.  Evie has a bruised, swollen eye to show for it.
Poor baby wailed and cried crocodile tears :(

Loving this time of year!

I was definitely sad to see this weekend end.  I had an extra day off and I enjoyed every single extra second that I got to spend with Evelyn.  As an added bonus, my mom and sister came up to see us on Friday and do some Christmas shopping.  Evie loved hitting the mall with us girls!  She was an angel the entire day!  Of course, it helped that Aunt Shannon, Kiki and I took turns holding her when she got tired of sitting in her stroller.  She loved the commotion of the mall and all of the decorations.  She even saw Santa – from a distance.  Daddy wasn’t with us so we decided to wait until he could be there for her to get closer and maybe sit on his lap.  After all of our shopping we had dinner and again Evelyn did fantastic.  She enjoys drinking water from a straw so that kept her entertained and happy.

 Saturday and Sunday were mostly spent hanging out at the house.   We wrapped some presents, made peanut butter cookies, watched a Christmas movie and played with our girl.  She’s a busy little bee, always on the go.  She pulled up on the couch last week *all by herself*.  I was a little caught off guard by this.  She still seems so little to me, but at almost 9 months I guess she’s getting to be a big girl!  She’s making messes, getting into stuff, and having a ball doing it!

 I find myself thinking about how she will be a year in a little over three months…and then stopping myself from thinking about it.  I want to enjoy the here-and-now with Evelyn.  I want to enjoy the stage that she’s at now.  She’ll never be this age again.  

St. Nick!!

St. Nick paid a visit to the Marker house this year to leave a special little girl a gift.  It's a very good thing that my mom made Evie her very own stocking so that he had someplace to put her presents.  Thank you Kiki!!  St. Nick left her two Christmas board books and a "My First Christmas" ornament for our tree.  He must have gotten a little confused about where Miss Evie lives because he also left her two new sleepers at Pops and Kiki's house.  Wow!  Thank you St. Nicholas!!

She found her voice....

and boy is it LOUD!  My child likes to scream.  A lot.  And the top of her lungs.   She's not necessarily screaming and crying.  She's just screaming because she can.  She'll scream when she wants our attention.  She'll scream when she gets excited.  She'll scream when she's frustrated and upset.  At first it was funny.  But it's quickly getting annoying and frustrating for us because we can't ask her to stop.  We can say "Shh!!".  We tell her in a quiet voice not to scream in the house.  But as of today, she doesn't understand.  She is still learning what no means and when we say "No screaming!", it's a toss up if she'll quiet down or bring it up an octave.  Our little one may be a soprano - she hits octaves with her screaming that can burst eardrums :)
We love her to bits - but we are definitely hoping she learns to use her indoor voice!

17 months ago....

For some reason today, I was reflecting on the day we found out Evie was coming.  Now, I’m not known for my great memory, but I remember a lot of the details of that day like it just happened.  It was July 23rd, 2011.  I woke up that morning and immediately took a pregnancy test.  I impatiently waited 5 or so minutes, not letting myself look at the test until the time was up.  I remember seeing the + sign and feeling my heart skip a beat.  I picked up the box that the test came in and re-read the directions, just to make that + actually meant pregnant.  I knew that it did, but I honestly couldn’t believe it.  I ran into our bedroom where Pat was sleeping and woke him up.  I know that some people have these nice, creative ways of telling their spouse that they are pregnant, but in that moment, all I could do was tell him the test was positive.  I don’t think I even said it in an excited voice, because he didn’t jump up and down or anything.  We were both in complete disbelief.  I told him that the test could be wrong and that I wanted to buy some more that day.  I can remember that my heart was beating so hard and fast that I thought it might burst.  We ended up going to the area of Columbus called the Short North that day and walking around all of the shops.  We had lunch at Si Senor, a Peruvian restaurant downtown and walked around for a few hours.  We kept wondering if the test was right, but I was afraid to get too excited in case it wasn’t.  We talked about how our lives would change with addition of a baby, we admired tiny baby clothes and toys in store front windows and we daydreamed about what our child would look like.  After a quick stop at Target on the way home to pick up more tests, we went home.  I took three more tests that day (as well as a test the next few mornings) and each one was positive.  I remember practically jumping into Pat’s arms after seeing those three positive tests.  I tried to reign in my excitement, fear, anticipation and joy, but I couldn’t.   I was going to be a mother!  One of my greatest dreams was going to come true and I couldn’t contain my happiness!
Fast forward 17 months and here I am, watching my daughter sleep and wondering how I got so lucky to be blessed with such a sweet, beautiful baby girl.  I didn't know it was possible to love someone this much.   
I will always remember the day we found out you were coming, my sweet little Evie, and how happy and excited we were.  "We loved you before we ever knew you, when there was just the hope of you.  We loved you."

Happy Thanksgiving!

 So many blessings, so much to be thankful for this year...

(Thank you Uncle Adam for taking these pictures!  But we didn't get any of you holding your favorite niece!)

Look what I can do!

Evie had another first yesterday.... she pulled up on the laundry basket all by herself!  She been pulling up on Pat and I for a week or so now, but not on furniture or anything else.  Then tonight, she was barefoot and able to get enough traction to pull herself up on the laundry basket and then scoot it across the kitchen! I can hardly believe that she's doing this at 8 months. I don't really want her to walk early (I have a hard enough time keeping up with her crawling), but I am quickly learning that it really doesn't matter what I want.  Little Miss Evelyn has a mind of her own!

Just another weekend...

We spent a lot of time at home this weekend, just playing and hanging out.  It's so much fun to just watch how much Evelyn changes and grows everyday.  She getting faster at crawling and she knows how to follow me when I leave a room.  She is so busy.  She literally never stops moving.  She loves her books.  She'll chew on them, but she will also sit there and turn the pages back and forth.  She loves to explore and notices everything.  She has started to pull up a little bit on Mommy and Daddy's legs when we are sitting next to her, but thankfully hasn't tried to pull up on any furniture yet.  We're not quite ready for that!  She keeping us on our toes...and we love it!

Hanging with her buddy

Fun with Tupperware

Reading books

Bathtime!

Sunday at my house...I'm a hot mess!

8 months old!!

I absolutely cannot believe my little sweetheart is 8 months old!!  She's a full-fledged crawler now.  She's interested in everything - especially laptops, cell phones and remote controls!  We had a big milestone today...Evie cut her very first tooth!!  My sweet girl is growing up so fast!!

Busy, happy week!! :)

Evie had a busy week!
She hung out with Aunt Shannon while Mommy and Daddy went to the OSU game...

She had a photoshoot for our Thanksgiving invitation to our families...

She watched the basketball game with Daddy...

She had a day of coffee, shopping and dinner with Mommy and one of Mommy's best friends, Julie...

She practiced her crawling...

She went furniture shopping....

And then she fell asleep in the middle of dinner...

Here's hoping next week is as good as this one was!