The Carnival!

Every Labor Day weekend our city puts on a wonderful festival. It is only about 5 mins from our house. In years past, I have gone every day to listen to the music, eat the yummy food, shop and just people watch. They also have a decent little Midway area with rides and rip off games. Last year Evvy rode the Merry Go Round and we convinced them that even though she wasn't 36" tall to ride on the "elephant" ride--she was really quite pitiful and cried and cried so they finally let her ride with an older child.

We started by torturing the children and dragging them to the quilt show. There were a few really pretty quilts that I liked. I did get a couple of Christmas presents bought so I guess Christmas shopping season has begun for me.

We went with our best friends and spent too much money riding the rides. I can't believe how expensive it is. I bought 20 tickets for $20 but luckily most of the kiddie rides are only 2 tickets so she did get to ride a lot of rides.

This year, Evvy is 38" tall so had no problem riding the kiddie rides. The first ride she wanted to ride was the Elephant ride. Then P, E, Evelyn and I all rode on the swinging basket ferris wheel. I haven't been on a ferris wheel in many many years. It was a lot of fun and Evvy loved it. She had no fear at all and really enjoyed the view of the city and being above the trees. She also went on a sweet canoe ride with E and then they also went on an alligator roller coaster that went pretty fast. We then rode the Merry Go round of course and ended riding a flying bumble bee ride that went up in the air. I asked Evvy if she was scared when we looked at the pictures tonight and she just laughed and said no. I think I have a fearless girl who is going to love amusement parks as she gets older.

I was a little disappointed with the food this year. It had nothing to do with the food itself. However, I have had a cold, sinus infection, upper respitory infection for the past 3 weeks and have been on antibiotics for 2 weeks. I still can't taste anything but a yucky taste which is a side effect of the latest antibiotic. It is such a waste to buy chocolate or anything and then not be able to taste it. I bought what looked like a really good steakburger with onions and the whole work and bbq sauce. I couldn't taste a thing. Maybe my sense of taste and smell will return b4 the weekend is over and we can go back and try a fried pickle or twinkie and cotton candy.

Here are some pictures from our day.

Susan

Miss Independent

Evelyn has become very independent in the past month or so. It is really quite a transformation. All of a sudden, she gets up in the morning and goes in and gets dressed all by herself. She can get up and down off the toilet and wipe her own tushy and flush all by herself. She can turn on the bathroom faucet and wash her hands by herself. If I try to help her with just about anything, she firmly tells me she can do it by herself. I also am enjoying the fact that when she gets up on the weekend I can get her to go into her room and play with puzzles, read books or play with her toys by herself and let mommy doze in bed a little longer (I can't really go back to sleep because I am a little too paranoid that she will get into something and hurt herself like I did when I was her age).

One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 3 years old. I was apparently at this independent stages and was going to get myself a drink of water all by myself. We had a glass water bottle in the fridge to keep cold water. I apparently climbed up on to the lip of the fridge and pulled down the water bottle and then proceeded to drop it and fall in the glass. I ended up cutting a tendon in my left hand and having to have surgery. For many years I couldn't make a tight fist and I still have a visible scar on my hand (I always thought it was a pretty cool scar). Anyway, my memory is sitting in the hospital at a little table and having what must have been the doctor come around to check on me--I just remember a man in a suit coming into see me. I don't remember being scared or anything.


Anyway, the point of telling that memory is that I am afraid that Evvy in all of her indendence might try to do something for herself and accidentally hurting herself.


Here is the picture of Evvy that I snapped this morning after she went in to play with puzzles. She got herself "dressed" in a much too small slip that she found recently and she was clicking around the house in her high heal princess shoes. It was pretty amusing and cute.

Reading her card from her BFF.

Didn't quite get everything "untucked"

Susan

Catching up

I have been missing blogging lately so I am going to start again. I haven't blogged since February and was looking back over some of the last posts. Evvy has changed so much and is a totally different person. She is such a joy to me and I feel so blessed to call her my daughter.

So what has happened since February?

• March we had a lot of fun playing in the snow. Evvy LOVES snow and is looking forward to winter again already.
• April: We had a fun visit with Grandma and Grandpa. They came and spent Easter with us. Evvy "rode" in Grandpa's airplane. Still hasn't gotten off the ground but she now has high hopes that maybe next time Grandpa will take her up to "touch the clouds." We had a fun visit to the Deanna Rose Farm where Evvy fed some baby goats with a bottle. She was disappointed that they wouldn't let her ride a pony because she wasn't 3 yet and her mom couldn't lie.
• April 18 marked the 2 year anniversary of Evvy coming home from Guatemala. We celebrated by going to one of our favorite Guatemalan restaurants "El Quetzal" and ended with a trip to Evvy's favorite Guatemalan bakery for a BIG SPINKLE Cookie (galleta).
• In April we also took a long weekend and drove to Omaha to go to the wonderful zoo and children's museum. Evvy still talks about the fun hotel which had an indoor waterpark with a double size hot tub and a "current pool" The hotel wasn't crowded so we pretty much had it to ourselves. Another highlight of the trip to the zoo was riding the carosel 3 times (a zebra, elephant and horse). Evelyn LOVES Merry Go Rounds. She had a little meltdown after the 3rd time because she wanted to go yet again. Instead we went and saw a beautiful peacock that spread its feathers and let Evelyn get very close to it.
• May was pretty warm so we had a couple of trips to the splash park and hung out with our friends.
• June 6 Evelyn turned 3 years old. We had a small party with 3 of her little friends. They just played water games and swam in her little pool in the front yard. I can't believe my baby is 3. She got a new scooter, tricycle and some nice new clothes from Grandma.
• June 8 Evelyn started "pre-school" at the local elementary school. She had no anxiety at all about going. She has gone joyfully and happily every day. At the same time, she greets me every day with a huge hug and "mommy" when I pick her up. Evelyn is very social and quickly made lots of new friends in her class. After a picnic with her class she came home and told me that "J" is my boyfriend. Just the way she said it was so cute. He is her special friend. However, since then she tells me that all of the male students are her boyfriends so I stopped worrying when I realized she was just classifying them by their gender. J is still her best friend though if you ask her. He is a very cute hispanic boy.
• July we celebrated the fourth of July with our friends at an annual picnic that we attend. Evvy really likes the fourth of July and fireworks. We went swimming a few times at our local waterpark but the summer overall was pretty cool. It seemed that the weekends were either rainy, cold or one of us was sick. Evvy did take swimming lessons though and really enjoyed them and learned some skills that will hopefully help her become a good, safe swimmer. She still needs a lifejacket but she can dive under and retrieve rings and sticks from under the water. She can also swim underwater to and from the steps of the pool. She still LOVES the water.
• August was a great month for us. I took 1 1/2 weeks off of work and we went on a couple of vacations. First we headed down to the Lake of the Ozarks for our 3rd annual MOGUATE gathering. There were 46 families that attended this year with close to 100 people. We had such a good time seeing friends from previous years and meeting lots of new friends. We were able to participate in some good "giving back to Guatemala" projects while there. We raised money for a group that does a lot of good work in Guatemala by raffling off a Guatemalan quilt and basket of other toys from Guatemala. The other project is called "Project Santa." We were blessed to have a friend and her family from Louisiana come to our gathering. V does a lot of good work in Guatemala and will be going down in a couple of months to distribute supplies that she has gathered to the needy in Guatemala. She has been responsible for giving Christmas to hundreds of children in families in Guatemala over the past several years. Visit Vanessa's blog to see how you can help or see the wonderful work she is doing for Guatemala.
• After MOGUATE we came home for a day and then got in the car and drove to Chicago to meet some of our friends that I have known through the adoption process online but had never met in person. We had a great time in Chicago. We spent 3 days in the suburbs going to the park, eating great food, going to the zoo and to a great splash park and just hanging out at the hotel pool. We went to our Chicago friend's condo and had yummy Chicago style pizza one night. The kids had a great time playing with each other and all of Andrew's wonderful toys. On Friday of that week Evvy and I headed downtown. We stayed at the Hilton hotel right downtown for an incredibly inexpensive price thanks to Priceline.com. It was a gorgeous hotel. The location was great. We were able to park the car in the garage and walk every where. Our favorite part of Chicago was Millenium Park and the "giant jelly bean." We went there 3 times in less than 24 hours. We enjoyed some outdoor concerts also and really just had fun walking around and people watching. Evvy had fun chasing "pingins" aka Pidgeons. There was also a wonder water sculpture area that kids could play in the water. It was great because it was a warm day. We also went and got some yummy Garretts popcorn. Have to say it was some of the best cheese and caramel corn that I have ever tasted. We also took a 2 hour bus ride on top of a double decker tour bus so we really saw all the sights of the city. We definitely want to go back again so that we can go to some of the museums and maybe the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. After our long day, we went and had Chinese food (Evvy's favorite) and then went back to the hotel for a nice swim. Evvy totally crashed watching a movie in bed. The next morning we took a walk down to Dunkin Donuts to get some donuts and juice and went back to Millenium Park and the Jelly Bean. It was a totally different experience because there were hardly and people. Then we were off for a long drive back home.

I will try to go back and add some pictures to this post over the next few days since that is really what people really want to see on the blog. I really just wanted to capture "our story" and what we have been doing in the past 6 months. I want to be a bettter blogger so that we have a record of the story of our wonderful life.

Happy Birthday mommy!

Yesterday was my birthday. I have decided that it isn't about me, but about how much Evvy enjoys my birthday. She was very sweet and sang me happy birthday numerous times and gave me lots of birthday kisses. Then she would say, "we have cake and ice-cream?" The balloon that my friend gave me of course was really for Evvy. The musical card was really for Evvy :) It was really a great day.

I received the most incredible gift from my uncle. He sent me a quilt that was made by his uncle's mother in law when she was a teenager. The quilt is over a hundred years old and is in excellent condition.


Here are a couple of pictures from my big day and some video of Evvy and Erica shaking their groove things. The music was from my birthday card. I don't think I caught the funniest ones on camera but these are pretty good.

Cat Fight!

Had to share this video of Evvy and Bella (cat). Evvy got the tent from Grandma for Christmas. It is a bed tent but we didn't have her new big girl bed when this video was taken. Bella LOVES the tent. When Evvy is in it (or even when she isn't) Bella will jump on top of the tent. I have to "lock" Bella in the front of the house when Evvy is going to sleep otherwise she will never go to sleep. Evvy is so funny. She loves Bella and wants to play with her and cuddle with her all the time but when it comes to sleeping, she will not allow the cat in her bed or even her room. I wish she would let Bella sleep with her. They are so sweet when they are cuddling up together. Evvy just coos at Bella "oh my sweet baby, you are so sweet"

Anyway, here is their cat fight in the tent.

Old McEvvy went to the farms!

My parents recently moved and live in a pretty rural area. They get eggs from a neighbor who raises chickens and guineas (sp). They go to another farm and get fresh milk. Evvy has really enjoyed going to see the animals with Grandpa. She has been to the cow farm twice now. I went today and there were a lot of baby cows too. They were a very friendly bunch of cows.

Evvy had her first horse ride also. It was a pretty good size horse that one of her cousins rides.

Here are some pictures & video from Evvy's visits to the various farms.

Bock Bock!

Look at all those chickens

Evvy rides Scout

I'm so BIG mommy.


Having a great time




Can I have a bite?

Yummy carrots

Got anymore carrots

So soft

Evvy kisses Ladybug (the cow)

Ladybug kissing Evvy

Time to go home

Christmas pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas at grandma and grandpa's (papa's) house. Uncle Rob, Aunt Aimee, Ethan and Elise were there also. Uncle Allan and his family also came up for the afternoon and evening. Evvy slept in until 7:15 woo hoo. She was the first one up and first out to see what Santa had brought. Not sure that Evvy believed in Santa. She saw the new baby doll that "Santa" brought and I asked her what it was and she said "mommy got me a new baby doll." Guess I wasn't quite so sneaky putting those toys in the shopping cart. I think she was more excited about the candy canes and m&m's than all the toys. We kept it pretty low key and got lots of learning toys, spanish books and CD's. She also really likes the tea set from Aunt Aimee. She seems to be "discoverying" the new toys a little each day. She did enjoy opening all the presents this year but was also really sweet handing presents to everyone else.

I put together a little slideshow of some of our Christmas pictures to share with everyone. We definitely are enjoying the warmer weather down here in TX.

Susan

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Gingerbread Houses

We have a tradition that we make gingerbread houses every year. We made them occasionally when I was younger but I think it became a yearly tradition with my brother's family when I visited them one year. My nephews were pretty young back then and they are both in college now. So the tradition has been going on for quite a while now. For the past many years I have also been making the houses with my BFF and her kids. Evvy and I made one last year at my brother's house but Evvy was still pretty small. This year was her first year of really decorating one "by herself." My girl loves candy. You would think that she ate it all the time by the way she talks about it and oohs and ahhs about it or maybe that is a sign that she doesn't get it very often and is excited when she does get it.

Evvy really enjoyed putting the candy on the house and into her tummy. I think she put 2 on the house and then one in her mouth. She had a couple of moments of tears when I wouldn't let her eat the gingerbread man and the candy off the house. We finally decided that we would let the kids eat the men but they really just ate the candy and frosting off of them.

OK. Have to write a sidenote of what my DD is doing right now. She is watching Pooh and the scene where Tigger has climbed the tree and is scared to jump down. So Evvy decided she needed to climb a tree also. Um, the only tree in our house is the Christmas tree. She was seriously contemplating climbing it. She was looking for where she could put her feet and hands.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of our fun day with our dear friends.

Fine motor skills!

Concentrating hard.


This is FUN!

This is hard to turn it for the camera. Don't drop it!

Time Out! I wanna eat it now!

This is the best part!

Don't be scared, I won't bite your head off little man.

Caught red handed

No one's looking, right?

First Snow of the Year

Today we had our first real snow of the season. I say YUCK. My normal commute home takes 25-30 minutes. Today it took 2 hours. I could hardly get Miss E to the car from the sitter's house. She had to stop and grab handfuls of snow to eat. She LOVES snow. She loved it last year and would always want to eat it. This year is no different. When we got home, she got her boots on and went outside and stomped around in the snow and ate handfuls of it. She got mad at the mittens which impeded the amounts of snow she could pick up and stuff in her mouth. Besides, when she tried to wipe the snow off her face, the mittens really didn't help, they made her get more snow all over her face. So she took the mittens off and continued eating and throwing snow. Then she said she wanted to take her coat off. I told her we had to go in if she took her coat off because it was too cold. So she goes inside willingly and takes her coat off and then wants to go back outside without the coat. Being the love and logic mother that I try to be, I let her go back outside without the coat (just her hat and boots). She is standing there shivering with her hands out. She ate a handful of snow and just stood there trembling. I told her to go inside which she did but then she got mad and started crying because she really wanted to be out in the snow. Such a dillema--hates the coat, loves the snow, hates being cold....

So we compromised. I went and got a bowl and went outside and filled it with snow. She then sat at the table and ate every last flake while I made dinner. It was pretty funny.

So one of us is happy that winter is here. It is NOT me.

Oh and just a disclaimer on the video. This girl is a sponge and repeats EVERYthing. The stupid was not in response to the question of "do you have the best mommy in the world." She was just repeating what I had said about a driver on the way home who pulled out in front of us on an icy road. Gotta watch my mouth :)

This is better! Snow in the warmth of my own home!

My Prima Ballerina!

Evvy really loves to dress in her "princess ballerina" outfit. She is just so darn cute in it. What cracks me up is the hat she has to wear with the outfit. So doesn't go with the outfit but it is so Evvy. She is definitely her own person. I have a couple of short videos that show just how much of a perpetual motion machine this little girl is. She is non-stop motion and talking. I couldn't love her any more. She amazes me every day.

Do you like my hat?

The hat covers my crazy hair.

I love to be upside down

Mommy needs to teach me to be more ladylike

No more pictures!








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