Birthday Bash

Jesse finished his 32nd year on April 5th.  (Sorry for the weird wording, he didn't want me to tell you how OLD he is!)  Since he was working a late shift we celebrated this monumental occasion over breakfast.  Evelyn and I got up early and made him special birthday french toast.  She helped by eating half of a piece before I could put it in the egg mixture.  What a lucky Daddy!

 

  

Here's the GPS he requested for his birthday and was no surprise.  Jesse's eyes are closed in most of the pictures I take of him.  This was take three after I had made fun of him for always closing his eyes.  I thought it looked pretty funny! 

 

Since we met and started spending time with our friends the Hirads, Jesse has wanted a Persian backgammon board.  He was totally surprised that I finally got him one.  It's Turkish, not Persian, but it beats the mini magnetic travel size one we use to play on!

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful man I know! Thanks for everything you do and for all the effort you put into our little family.  I love you, babe!

Hello My Friends!

The last weekend in March we had a visit from our friends from Denver, Tony and Elizabeth Hirad.  They came for two and half fun filled days.  We were able to do many things some of which were: tennis, hiking the Baby Bath Trail in Ouray, tennis, a mini game of backgammon (literally...it was a tiny travel size board), tennis, energizing Evie kisses, and more tennis.

This is the beautiful creek we hiked along for part of our journey.  Evelyn liked it so much she gave it her snack cup on the way back to the car.

This is the view from the top.  I zoomed in so you can actually see what we were looking at.  What looks like a lake at the base of the mountains is beautiful Ouray.

 

 

 

Can you say lopsided?  Not as good as they usually are, but I still think she looks cute!

We had a great time and only wish Denver was closer.  What great friends we have! Thanks for the great visit.

Can You Say...?

Lately our favorite game to play with Evelyn has been Can You Say...?  For example I might say "Evie, can you say horse?" and she will say "horse".  We have lots of fun playing this game and helping her learn new words.  She is a learning machine and it's neat to see her develop.  

The other night at dinner we played and after about 10 minutes Jesse asked "Evie can you say stinker? and she responded "dada!"  It was so funny I almost fell off of my chair.  I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it and decided right then that I needed to blog about it.

A few days later my note was still sitting on the table.  Jesse found it, read it, and said I was wrong, that she didn't say "dada", but that she said "stinker".  My thoughts on the whole thing?  You hear what you want to hear and I KNOW I heard right!

Pants in a Pinch

Jesse's Dad came for a visit last weekend and while he was here we went all over Montrose and the surrounding areas to see interesting things.  Unfortunately in our usual mad rush to get into the car we forgot the camera, so we have nothing more than fond memories of our adventures.  

Our first excursion was to the Black Canyon.  Most of it was blocked off for snowshoeing and cross country skiing and since we had neither with us we couldn't go past the visitors center.  So we went back to the highway to see some more sights.  We ended up going to Blue Mesa Reservoir (the largest body of water in Colorado) and to Morrow Point Dam where the Gunnison and Cimmaron Rivers meet.  

On Saturday we went to Ouray, drove up Million Dollar Highway to the end of Box Canyon, and took a wild ride in Yankee Boy Canyon.  There were amazing views of the Red Mountains and it was obvious once again why they refer to the area as America's Swizterland.  Darryl and Jesse played lots of tennis and even got in a little disc golf.  Overall it was a great visit and was only dampened by the fact that Evie was sick and limited what we were able to do.

While we were looking into the Black Canyon at the visitor's center all the sudden I started to smell something rather familiar.  So Evelyn and I walked back up to the top and headed for the changing table in the bathroom.  Much to my surprise Evie had had her first blowout since she was about 6 months old.  It was really unpleasant.  I didn't have much with me so I fashioned pants out of her coat, which worked surprisingly well.

So here they are...you can't tell from the back but the hood was in front so it's a little more obvious.  I held them up with the elastic that goes around the sunshade for my car.  I was impressed with my ability to make it work and had to document the moment when we got home.  Evelyn didn't want the picture as much as she wanted to play with the camera...hence the odd way her head is cut off in most of them and how she didn't want grandpa to help her stand still!  She had also pulled the pig tails out of her hair so she looks odd allover!

 

 

 

Adventures in Babyland

Evelyn is a bucket of fun and constantly keeps us on our toes.  Here are some of the things we have been doing lately. It's a little lengthy, but I couldn't bring myself to cut any more out. 

Evelyn is a fabulous helper and takes any chance she has to "help" me cook.  I don't know which she enjoys more, sitting on the counter or pouring, stirring, and tasting.  I love that she's interested, which is good because I can't imagine it will stop anytime soon.

We made oven pancakes and pico de gallo.  I'm sure you'll be shocked to know she didn't really appreciate the taste of either the onion or the lime peel.  She was a good sport for trying them though.

As I've told you before Evelyn LOVES the movie Tangled.  Anytime she watches it she will run to the bathroom to get my brush so she can "brush and brush and brush and brush [her] hair" just like Rapunzel does.  More often than not she decides her hair isn't as fun to brush as Mommy's and turns the brush on me.  You'll see that she didn't want to take the picture as much as brush my hair...

For a family date Jesse took us bowling.  Evelyn was so excited to see all the people, lights and bowling balls.  She entertained everyone around us by yelling "ball" every time she saw one and even improved my score by bowling a little herself.

 

 

Evelyn has been obsessed lately with putting her food in her hair.  She started out lightly by smashing her peas and rubbing them in her hair, but has moved on to just about anything that's put on her tray is eventually placed on her head.  It's not that big of a deal most of the time, but every once in a while I cringe at the thought. 

For example the we had pancakes for breakfast and where should she rub that pesky syrup? Of course it went directly to her head.  Now when we clean her up it turns a simple hand and face wash into a hair wash too.  Most of the time a wash cloth will suffice, but on special occasions she gets her hair washed in the sink. Hair must improve the taste...

Evie has always loved the camera and tolerates her parents picture taking pretty well. Lately when we ask her to smile we get a little more than we bargain for.  Instead of the sweet little smile of the past she throws her head back, squints her eyes, and opens her mouth.  It makes for some really "cute" pictures.  We lovingly refer to it as her horse smile, because that's kind of what she looks like...

 

 

 

She is a wonderful little girl and a total blessing in our lives.  We are certainly glad she's ours!

Tourture??...Okay, Maybe Just a Little

We've had lots of fun lately with Evelyn and only a little of it came at her expense.  Luckily we took some pictures so all of you can experience it vicariously through them...hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them!

I was reading the ads that came in the mail and Evie decided she wanted to read them too!  It was really quite cute. I got a good video of it, but figured the pictures would suffice.

Just some fun moments we caught of Evelyn climbing allover Jesse.  Anytime he is on the floor she treats him like a human jungle gym.  My guess is he likes it because he continues to put himself in this position.

Can you say comfortable?!?  I came in to make sure Evie's blankets were all still on her before I went to bed the other night and this is what I found.  The positions she falls asleep in never cease to amaze me.

 Jesse Took Evelyn on their first solo hike last weekend.  Both of them had a fabulous time and other than a little mud came back unscathed.  When they got back we pulled off the layers of clothing on Evie and had a little fun as you can see in this video.  I thought it was too fun not to share!

This Stuff Never Gets Old

These just make me laugh so I thought I'd share them with you...enjoy!