Party Time!

The party - meant to keep it small, but when so much of our family lives here with so many cousins, it just sort of grows and grows. She had a blast! I am so thankful for a big yard with so much to do for little ones!

 From left to right, cousin Kaydence (2), neighbor Katie (2.5) and cousin Sara (6.5)

 cousin Tessa (4mos)

 cousin Mercy (6)

 Birthday Girl

 Cousin Wyatt (3)

 Birthday Girl with cousin Jonathan (13)

 Evie with friend Ian (8)

 In area of our yard for toddlers (we call it Peel Park West)

 We had two wading pools, a slip n slide, the toddler play area, the playhouse, and the regular playset. The tire swing was not up for this party due to Soozie chewing the rope to bits...

 Mommy made a big Mickey cookie cake!

 Blowing out her candle (with Wyatt's help of course)

Yummy! 

 Quite a crowd 

 Sara wiping Claire's face

 Children all around

 Sweet cousins (Kaydence just celebrated her birthday a few weeks before Claire)

 Cousin Matthew (10.5) WAAAAY up in the tree

 Cousin Sara in the toddler swing, silly girl :)

 All the goings on down at Peel Park

 Beautiful birthday girl

 Sweet Evie Jane with big cousin Jonathan

The girls finally shooed the boys away from the slip n slide 

And a good time was had by all!

Claire Turns Two

Here are the pictures from the morning of Claire's big 2nd Birthday!

Soozie tries out the Minnie Mouse ears. (Claire wanted Mickey ears for her birthday and I could only find Minnie ears. She quickly remedied my mistake by coming straight to me and saying, "Bow Off! Bow Off!") 

 Mickey Balloon! (It is still afloat in the playroom two weeks later).

 An interesting take on a "hoppy ball," this is a "hoppy hotdog." She is still too small to really get on it, even after Geoff has let out a good deal of the air. So I guess we're still in the market for one geared more towards toddlers...

 Evelynn's gift to Claire? This was the first morning she decided she could really crawl in earnest, on all fours, covering lots of ground in short time.

 Floor puzzle with sounds - Mommy quickly realized that all of the "eyeballs" from the animals had to be removed so Evie Jane wouldn't swallow them...

 Evelynn gets in on the action

 Evie samples Claire's matching puzzle cards

 The birthday girl

 Singing cards continue to be a big favorite of Claire's - to give as well as to receive

 Trying out fingerpaint with NiNi

 With her singamajigs from Mr. Mike, she named them "Singing Gini (purple one), and Two (red one)"

Ready for my party now...

Wake Up Evie! Zoo!

The title of this post is a direct quote from Claire on the morning before her birthday. My grandmother sent birthday money for Claire and we decided to use it to take her to the zoo for the very first time. It was a fun trip with good memories, but a bit hot!

This last picture is of the black bear, who Claire said was her favorite part of the zoo, although she liked the monkeys as well. She got to take home one special something from the gift shop and she made a bee-line straight for a little stuffed black bear, appropriately named "black bear" who is now a nightly favorite alongside a cow, appropriately named "moo cow."

Hello August...

Begging your pardon for being off-blog for nearly a month! That's the tell-tale sign that there is a lot to blog about. We have had a bigtime birthday, our first zoo adventure, a huge party, a couple of well visits to the doctor to report about. And I've been busy trying to get clothing and toys ready for the seasonal consignment sale, helping my sister and her family get settled into town, and trying to re-watch all of the Harry Potter movies in anticipation of finally seeing the last one in the theater for my anniversary date with Geoff. So yes, a bunch of excuses, for what they are worth...

For now, please enjoy some pictures from before Claire's birthday in the first weeks of August.

 Evelynn and cousin Wyatt play very well together. He is so sweet with her!

 And Claire just ADORES Tessa. Here she is playing with her toes.

 These two share a good deal of resemblence in looks and even in their little voices/cries. It's going to be so fun to watch them grow up together. I hope they are good friends.

 Yessiree! Evie Jane is a skilled crawler. Claire went in the box and Evelynn was quick to follow. I am hearing a constant refrain of "No Evie" from Claire now that Evelynn can get into everything. Oh, and folks, this little one is already pulling up as well, so who knows how long she will decide to stick with crawling. Not any longer than she has to, I can guarantee that!

 As I've been going through all of the outgrown fall/winter clothes for consigning, Claire has had fun trying things on. We all know how much she loves hats! This one still fits for this winter.

The oh-so-adorable Tessa Joy in Evie's bouncer. :)

A Million Gazillion Posts Today

Scroll down and down and down and work your way back up. I've posted a boatload of pictures going back to the end of June to the present. Again, sorry for the delay. Enjoy catching up!

There's Nothing Like Family

The weekend before we left for Nashville, my sister and her family moved here to Opelika! It is going to be so fun to have our children grow up together. Tessa and Evelynn are only 3 months apart in age and definitely favor each other. I think they're going to be best buddies! 

Wyatt and Claire are a year apart and are playing as well together as a 3 year old boy and 2 year old girl can be expected to. 

My sister is afraid she will drive me crazy by dropping by too often, but I think there is no such thing - her being here is a long awaited answer to prayer and I couldn't be happier than to glance out my window and see Wyatt running up the path to our front door, or to go see Mercy at Karate camp or to hold Tessa while she and Evie Jane attempt to coo at each other. This is AWESOME. 

Claire in the blue tunnel - can you tell how hot and humid it is by looking at her crazy hair?!? 

Sweet Tessa at 3 months 

Evie with all the toys. She is so close to crawling and is occasionally making it a little ways on her hands and knees before falling back on her tummy. She can get around on her belly pretty well too, though. She is much more "into" everything than Claire ever was, so now is the time to re-babyproof the whole house because I imagine another week is the maximum amount of time we have before she is all over the place. Probably won't be another day! 

The stand-off between Claire and her dinner. We guess she just didn't want to eat this night because the next night she had FOUR servings of meatloaf. 

Evelynn LOVES this foodnet thing that you can put fruit in for her to suck on. 

She puts the "chew" in Chewbaca. (This was during Claire's nap. Chewbaca is Claire's special toy, so she'd probably not like Evie chewing on him. Evie doesn't have teeth yet, so it's probably okay).

So, we're at the present in pictures at least, and I will try not to get so behind in the future. In the past month, we've had my sister move here, I've gotten two stomach bugs 10 days apart, and we've gone to Nashville and back. Claire has not had an accident in something like 3 weeks; Evie can push herself to a sitting position and army crawl and almost crawl on hands and knees; Evie no longer nurses at night; and the girls are sharing a room. So life is getting a little easier and a little more interesting. For those wondering what Evie weighs at 6 months (now almost 7 months), you'll have to wait a little longer. Her shots were scheduled the day after I spent a night throwing up and I had to cancel. Both girls will have their next well check up on August 23rd. All I can say is, Evelynn is in some 12 and some 18 month clothing, but I think she is looking less roly poly and will probably continue slimming down as she gets moving. Claire has been eating and growing like a weed and is finally mostly wearing 2T clothes, though pants are tricky not only because she is slender, but also because I think they are mostly made on the assumption that kids are still wearing diapers, which she is not at all doing. So glad I finally got to post - hope you've enjoyed catching up!