Friday, June 21, 2013

Growing Girl!

Evie is growing and changing so much every day.  At one year, she weighed 21lbs. and she stayed that way for a while.  She was barely filling out her 12 months clothes, which was surprising because she has almost always worn a size bigger than her actual age.  I think there were a lot of factors that contributed to this.   She had her first ear infection.  She was on medicine (again, a first for her) for almost a month due to the fact that the ear infection was persistent and would not go away.  The medicine made her have a lack of appetite and an upset tummy so she wasn’t eating as much.  I won’t even go into the awful diapers…  Anyway, she just didn’t gain any weight for a while.  Now that she’s feeling better, Evelyn has become our bottomless pit!  She wants to eat constantly.  She loves fruit – especially blueberries.  She loves it when I make sweet potato oven fries – she cannot get enough of them!  She always wants to sample whatever we are having, and we’ve been surprised at some of the stuff she’ll eat.  Casseroles, chicken salad, BBQ, quesadillas, hot dogs, eggs.  I try to balance it by giving her small portions of the not-so-good-for-you stuff and larger portions of fruits and veggies, but our girl is stubborn about what she wants to eat and if she doesn’t want it, she won’t eat it.  She actually started giving it to the dog – Geez!!.  As a result of the this increased appetite, Evie is getting bigger!  At her 15 month checkup, she weighed in at 23lbs and is 31 in. tall!!
In addition to her food adventures, Evie continues to hone her walking skills.  She is still working on getting her balance, but she has gained a lot of confidence.  She is now walking as much as she is crawling!  She's getting better at it everyday. Evie can be stubborn and strong-willed.  She will sometimes throw fits when she doesn’t get her way.  Usually she can be easily distracted, but we are working on teaching her that crying and throwing her toys is not the way to get what you want.    
Evie has really started to mimic us.  She’ll click her tongue and mimic sounds that we make.  She is a big talker, although we can’t really understand what she’s saying much of the time.  But she is trying to repeat what we say.  When I give her something, I’ll tell her to say thank you and she’ll mumble something.  She’s definitely trying.  She still loves dogs and will ooh and ahh when she sees one.  We show her how to be sweet to Crosby and pet him gently, and she’ll copy us.  She knows what a dogs says and she’ll make the ‘woof woof’ sound when asked.  It’s so cute!  
Evelyn is getting so big – we can hardly being it!  She keeps us on our toes, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.


Sunday, June 9, 2013

Let the summer begin!!

We've had a pretty good summer so far!


We got our zoo pass and Evie said hi to all of the animals at the zoo...

We visited Grandpa Tim....


We went to farmer's market in Worthington while Uncle Adam was in town ...

 Uncle Adam and Daddy built Evie a swing set for her swing....

We went to the zoo again with Uncle Adam...

 And we have been playing outside, taking walks, swimming and enjoying the wonderful summer weather!!  We love this time of year!!

Friday, June 7, 2013

Pool time...and letting go.


Evie went swimming in her pool for the first time over the weekend.  The water was chilly, but she loved every second of it.  She crawled all around the pool, splashed water everywhere and kept putting her face in the water.  She was a crazy lady!  She tried to get out of the pool and ended up straddling the side.  Well, once she did that and figured out that she could bounce around, it was over.  That was ALL she wanted to do.  No matter how many times I told her no and put her back in the pool, she would not sit still.  She would go right back to bouncing.  Finally I decided to pick my battles and gave up.  She wasn’t going to hurt herself if she fell and I was right there, so I just let her go.  It’s hard for me to do this sometimes – let her go.  Now that she’s starting to walk, she constantly bumping her head and bumping into things.  I want to protect her from everything that could ever hurt her, but I know that I if I don’t let her fall a few times, she’ll never learn to pick herself back up.  I think that Pat and I both have parents that did this for us.  They let us fall and make some mistakes, but they were always there to help us if we needed them.  That’s the kind of parent I want to be for Evelyn.  I don’t think I realized just how hard it would be and I have even more respect for our parents now.  Letting go is hard.  I can barely handle it at 14 months so it’s a good thing that school is still a few years away for Evelyn.  It’s hard to think about letting Evie out into the big world without me.  It’s hard to think of her facing the things that children today face.  It’s enough to make me want to homeschool her.  Letting go is hard, but it’s also necessary and worth it.  I hope that by letting go, Evie learns to be confident and strong.  I hope that she learns to make good decisions and that her actions have consequences.  I hope that she learns that it’s ok for her to make her own choices, but that sometimes mom and dad really do know best.  I hope that she learns that no matter what happens, we will ALWAYS love her and accept her for who she is.  Yes, letting go is hard and I’m glad I don’t have to do it all at once.  For now, I’ll just let her bounce in her pool and stay close by in case she needs me to catch her.

A Weekend with Kiki and Pops


We had another first in our house over Memorial Day weekend… our first night away from Evelyn.  Pat and I went to Cedar Point for 2 days and a night and Evie stayed at home with her Kiki and Pops.   I was pretty nervous about leaving her.  I trust my parents completely, but the thought of being two hours away made me worry the entire week (ok the entire month) leading up to it.  I pre-cut most of her food, I had a medical release for notarized in case of an emergency, I showed my parents where we kept the Tylenol, and I typed out a full page list of instructions.  Luckily my parents know me and were very understanding about my over-protectiveness.  In the end, Evie did great.  According to my mom, she never cried or seemed out of sorts.  She laughed and played and was absolutely spoiled rotten by her grandparents.  They went shopping, to the park, Evie played in her tent with Pops and even went to DQ for some ice cream.  We missed her while we were gone, but it was so nice to get away and have some adult fun.  I know that I’ll always worry about my little girl, but I think my mind will be a little more at ease the next time we go away. 
I love my new sunglasses!

 


Happy Birthday Daddy!!




I’m a little late in posting this since Pat’s birthday was on the 5/28.  But I couldn’t waste to opportunity to wish my awesome husband a Happy 35th Birthday!!  Evie and I love you very much!!