Evelyn Clara: 8 months old

Evie is 8 months old today, I can't even believe it! She is the most amazing little girl, every day she makes us laugh and we are so surprised by how quick she learns and grows. Evie is about 50/50 between army crawling and regular crawling these days, she often starts out in a regular crawl towards something she wants, then at the  end drops to army crawling- it's like her sprint to the finish. :) She is pulling to stand on EVERYTHING, climbing all the time, and she's been cruising the furniture for about two weeks now. Her balance is improving daily, she can stand while holding on with just one hand, and has mastered getting down from standing without falling.
Evie's eating more and more table food these days, she's just like daddy and loves her bread! :) When we go out she sits in the high chair and eats bits of whatever we have just like a big girl- you'd be surprised how well she does since we still don't have any teeth! Her current favorite snack is yogurt melts, and I think her favorite food right now is peaches. We started yogurt and cheese with Evie a couple weeks ago- she loves yogurt (especially peach!), but can't really be bothered with cheese. It's actually the first food I've seen her NOT be interested in, she eats pretty much everything we give her. We'll probably start meat in another month or so.
Evie's new favorite toys are definitely books- mostly because she learned how to turn the pages now. She will lay on the floor with a book for a good 20 minutes or so and just turn the pages back and forth over and over. She especially likes her "Happy Baby Colors" book, I think because it has so many smiling babies in it and she LOVES to look at pictures of other babies.
Evie is becoming a little social butterfly with her other baby friends, she gets very smiley and chatty whenever there's another baby around and she wants to get down and play. She's just starting to show a little bit of stranger anxiety with adults she doesn't know, but if you give her 15-20 minutes, she warms up to pretty much everyone. :)
As you can see above, our photo shoots are getting more and more difficult- she was obsessed with the sticker this time around and I couldn't get a decent photo without her crinkling it. And most of our photo shoot went a little something like this....

I don't know how people do this every single month and keep the photos so consistent!! We tried her sitting up, but that was even worse, she kept crawling away. We'll see how next month goes! ;)

Playdate Madness!

You would think with it being winter time that we'd be stuck at home, but the weather has been unseasonably warm, and Evie and I are taking full advantage! We've been out and about quite a bit lately, and spending lots of time with our baby friends. Evie LOVES to interact with other babies, she gets the biggest smile when she's around another kid! She's usually pretty good too, she doesn't mind if a toy gets snatched from her, and although she's a little grabby with faces, she's very sweet to her friends. Here are some photos of recent outings with Evie's friends!

Evie and her betrothed, Micah

4 babies + 1 toddler = general chaos

Dom and Evie are still friends- even though he may have bitten her nose a few minutes before this!! 

Eli LOVES bubbles

Evie and Emma are destined to be Besties!

I don't know about anyone else, but Tuesday night meetings are getting HARD. It's way past bedtime by the end, and Evie doesn't want to sit anymore, or be quiet. So Steph and I have a weekly "playdate" around 9 pm every Tuesday in the library at the Kingdom Hall. When the girls are just about to lose it, we let them crawl around and play for the last 10 minutes of the meeting. We're pretty sure these two are BFFs already. ;)

Welcome winter!

It's finally cold and snowy here- we usually get bad weather so much sooner, I keep forgetting that it's already December! We haven't had a chance to take Evie in the snow yet, but stay tuned for a super cute pink snowsuit when we do! ;)
And here is Evie's newest hat to go with it, modeling at target. I think it's my new favorite photo of her, love her face!

Family Photos

We had family photos done with my parents, Matt and Ally, and us- here's the link to the gallery!

http://proofs.dedario.com/liane

Password: Evie

Evelyn Clara: 7 months

We just got home from a week long vacation in Florida, and Eric and I both came home with head colds (boo!), so forgive my tardiness with Evie's 7 month update. :) We are all doing wonderfully, and enjoying Evie more and more as she grows before our eyes.

Evie has mastered a lot of new and fun skills over the last month, she's been a busy girl! we started solid food this month as you all know from the videos and such, and she's doing great. Evie has eaten everything we've given her, and hasn't shown an aversion to a single food. She seems to love eating, and sometimes I think she'd just keep eating and eating if we kept giving her food- she never wants to stop! ;) Right now she's having a fruit mixed with oatmeal for breakfast, and a veggie and oatmeal mixed with formula for dinner. I've just started putting her in the high chair when I'm eating lunch and letting her play with some finger food. She's doing really well with picking up bits of food and getting them to her mouth, I can see that she'll have this mastered soon.
On the mobile front, we're still army-crawling, but Evie spends a lot of time on her hands and knees stationary, so I think she'll start crawling for real soon. And she has pretty much totally figured out how to pull herself to standing on furniture, laundry baskets, etc. so now she's standing quite a bit. It's so strange to see such a tiny girl standing up, it makes me laugh everytime I see her. :) And I'm afraid she's going to a climber with her interest in climbing up on anything she can reach, so watch out for that!
We went to the pediatrician today for a weight check since at her 6 month visit her weight gain was a little low, but she's bounced right back and we're on track again so nothing to worry about. Evie is 15.6 lbs and 26.75" long.
Here are some photos from our trip to Florida with Grandma and Grandpa Rudy, Uncle Dan, Aunt Tammy, and Uncle Greg. We had a great time and Evie was SO good, especially on the flights there and back. She slept great in the hotel and discovered her love of swimming. :) I'll be looking into Mommy and Me swimming lessons soon for us!

Evie is a Fish

Just popping in to share a moment from our vacation in Florida- we're having a great time and the weather is great! Tomorrow we're going to Sea World, which I'm hoping Evie enjoys. She clearly likes water, as seen from her fearless attempts to swim out of Eric arms in the pool this afternoon. :)

http://youtu.be/5camXU2TPmw

She's a Daredevil!

Evie has been getting more and more adventurous lately, exploring her abilities and strength. Her new favorite thing to play with is her carseat. She grabs the edge of it, pulls it down, then climbs inside. We need to start putting it in a different spot so she doesnt do this anymore, but I did take a photo while she was supervised. :)

 Then the other day, I changed Evie's diaper, and while taking care of it in the bathroom, I put her on the floor in her room with a toy. I come back to find her like this:

 That basket has toys and stuffed animals in it, and apparently she wanted in! She has now since mastered pulling herself up to kneeling on baskets and boxes. Then this morning, this happened:

Um yea. My 6 and a half month old pulled herself up to standing all on her own. No help. Is that even allowed!?!? I told Evie it's not. ;) She did it again this afternoon on a laundry basket- pray for us. She is growing up way too fast!! And I think it's so interesting that she still can't sit unassisted, but can do all these other things. I'm afraid this means we'll have a little girl who won't sit still!! ;)

Giggle Fits

Generally speaking, Evie's not much of a laugher. She'll smile for you all day long no problem, she's a very happy girl, but it takes a lot to get her to really laugh. But Daddy- he gets the giggles every time. :)

Pumpkin Take 2

Now there's a smiley Evie. :)

First Foods

http://youtu.be/pzvxM8bhZjA

Here's Evie's first experience with solid foods, we started with oatmeal. She did so great!!

Evelyn Clara: 6 Months

*sniff*sniff* My baby!!!!!

Okay, I'm alright now. Promise. ;) I just can't believe that Evie is half a year old already! She's such a little person now. Everyday we see her learning new things and picking up new skills, it is so much fun to watch. She's completely mastered army crawling now, and is all over the house into everything. No crawling yet- I think she's gotten so good at army crawling that she doesn't have much interest in getting up on her knees!
Evie's also babbling up a storm now- her baby vocabulary now includes "mamamama", "dadadada", "babababa", and occasionally "lalalala" (a rare but fun one!). She LOVES when we sing and dance around the house- particularly when I do crazy dance moves for her. She's only 6 months old, but she definitely already knows when I'm acting like an idiot for her. :)
We're starting to upgrade Evie's toys to more interactive ones and it's really fun to see her learn to use new things. She loves blocks now, and is fantastic at knocking down towers. She also likes cups and bowls of all kinds.
After her 6 month appointment this Thursday... we're going to start food!!! I'm really excited. :) I can't wait to watch her explore new tastes, I've been making my own baby food and keeping it in the freezer, so I'm stocked and ready. We will of course video her first experience, so stay tuned for that!
So many new things to see and do- it's a blast!

Fall Field Trip

We went to Mayer Bros Cider Mill and Bipperts Farm today with Jen and the boys, Pippa and Eli, and Aunt Allison. Miss Evie wasn't feeling super smiley, but here are some cute pics of the kids. She's still adorable! :) We got some delicious treats, and I'm motivated to try another pumpkin photo shoot before fall is over hopefully.

Road Trip Adirondacks

Well we took our first vacation with Evie- a 3-night stay in a cabin in the Adirondacks! We've stayed at Prospect Point before and really enjoyed it, the cabins are beautiful and the area is really nice, so we made the trip again this fall with baby in tow. Unfortunately it rained like 90% of the time we were there, but we made the best of it and had a good time anyway. :)

Evie did pretty well for the 5 hour rides there and back, especially for her not really liking the car very much. The roughest time was the 1 hour trip to Lake Placid we took on Friday- she was not happy there or back! But while we were there she was perfect, so it all worked out.

Evie seems to love being outdoors, she's pretty quiet and just looks around in what Eric described as "wonderment." We did a 1.5 hour hike up Bald Mountain (which turned out to be a WAY more difficult hike than we anticipated, but that's another story) and Eric had her in the Beco the whole time and she was great! Looked around and then fell asleep. :)

I was sad I couldn't get any photos of Evie playing in leaf piles.... but the leaf piles were all soaking wet, so these photos will have to do. This was our practice run for our big trip to Florida at the end of November- I think we're going to need like 26 suitcases based on how much I packed for this trip! ;)

Almost to the top of Bald Mountain- we didn't make it the whole way, because we'd been hiking FOREVER and then it started to rain and I had a mild panic attack about being trapped on a mountainside with a 6 month old and demanded to turn back and go down. Eric says he would classify my panic level as medium, not mild. ;)

Oh- and look at my wonderful husband babywearing- love him!!! Excuse the shoulder strap being off for you sticklers out there, he just moved it so we could get Evie's little face in the photo. We had her all bundled up!

Getting so big

 Evie's growing so fast we can barely keep up!! So many changes, I couldn't wait until 6 months to update- there will probably be even more things to report by then! Some new things going on for Miss Eviebean... she's out of the infant tub and taking baths in the "big girl" tub now. She's not sitting up on her own yet (she actually shows zero interest in sitting up, everytime I try to practice with her she leans forward to go straight into an army crawl. Who wants to sit still? This girl is on the move!), so I just use the Bumbo in tub. She was getting dangerous in the little tub, trying to pull herself over the edge constantly and making me super nervous. Now that we're in the big tub she can play with some bath toys too which is fun.

We also put up the Jolly Jumper to try out, and Evie thinks it's hilarious! She hasn't figured out how to jump up and down yet, but she spins around looking at everything and gabs up a storm when she's in there. Something about the jumper makes her chatty- the first time she was in there so did her happy scream for like 5 minutes straight! I love that she'll go in this thing now, it's really easy to transport so we can take it places to occupy her.

And finally, just this evening we tried a sippy cup for the first time- it went really well! We'll be starting solids at the end of this month when Evie turns 6 months, but she's been sitting at the table with us for meals for about a month now. She's getting antsy to try things, so I thought we could start on the sippy cup so she has something to do while we eat. I just put a little water in it, and it only took her about 5 minutes of playing around to figure out how to get the spout in her mouth and drink. And it definitely kept her busy while we had dinner. :) I'm so excited to start food with her!!

Games with Daddy

A conversation Eric and I had this evening while getting ready to go to meeting.

Eric: Honey, Evie and I have a new game we play.

Me: Oh yea? What is it?

Eric: It's called "Hey! Look at this little pillow!"

Me: (laughing) That's the name you gave it? What do you do?

Eric: Well, Evie lays on her back, and I say "Hey! Look at this little pillow!" and then I lay my head on her belly. And she laughs. And then we do it again. She likes it.

Then Eric demonstrates their new game. And Evie laughs. And my heart melts because he's pretty much the best Dad in the whole world and I love him. Okay now excuse me while I go bawl my eyes out- I blame the breastfeeding hormones!!! ;)

ETA: Photographic evidence of the "Hey! Look at this little pillow!" game.

Evie on the move

Please excuse the Bills game in the background- forgot to turn the sound off. :) But here's Evie army-crawling herself around like a champ!! It has begun friends.... let the babyproofing begin!

Evelyn Clara: 5 months old

Well I'm a little behind- it's been a busy couple of days. :) But here's Miss Evie, five months old already! She's SO much fun, we're having a blast watching her grow and learn. Evie learns so many new things, it's almost hard to keep us with her! She's army-crawling all over the place now, if she's going after a toy (or better yet, something she's not supposed to have like the tv remote) she can move quick! I know she'll be crawling soon, I wouldn't by surprised if it happens before she hits 6 months. Better start baby-proofing!!
She chatters and gabs all day long, making all sorts of cute baby noises. Her obsession with her tongue is hilarious, she makes the funniest faces. :)
She's also starting expressing herself more- and by that I mean she gets mad when we take things away. ;) She loves loves LOVES paper, and if she gets ahold of something she shouldn't have and we take away, watch out! But it's so fun to see her personality developing that I don't mind.
Evie also LOVES other babies, she gets so excited when she sees another baby or kid and she jabbers away and reaches for them. She's a very friendly girl, going to most anyone as long as she's not tired or hungry. She smiles all the time, we love our happy baby!

Evie's New Trick

I was holding off until Sunday to post for Evie's 5 month update, but some family notified me that they weren't getting enough Evie, so I'll try to post more often. :) Here are some cute photos of Evie's newest trick- she is obsessed with sticking out her tongue. All. The. Time. And she makes the funniest faces when she does it- love it!!

 

Evie's First Circuit Assembly

It was a smashing success! Evie was very well-behaved, she barely even fussed the whole two days. She sat in her Bumbo seat, played on a blanket on the floor, and sat with Mom, Dad, Nana, Grandpa, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Allison. Evie didn't nap much, especially on Sunday, but thankfully she wasn't too crabby because there was SO much to look at. It was really fun to watch her take everything in- it was different from the convention because she was only two months then and didn't react to what she saw very much. Now she was smiley and laughing at people and being a general charmer to everyone around her. :)

The Evolution of Evie's Hair

I was playing around with my new best friend Picasa (Google's free photo editing program) last night thanks to a tip from my friend Shaunna, and I made this mini-collage of Evie's month photos so far. It's only been four months, but look how much she's changed!!! The funniest part of this collection to me is Evie's hair. :) It was SO dark at first, and laid really flat. She's always had a ton of hair, but as you can see, it's taken on a life of it's own in four months! It's much lighter now, and it's pretty crazy most days. I love her crazy, curly hair- it makes me smile. :)

Fun Times in August

Just wanted to share some photos of the fun things we did in the month of August. Enjoy the cuteness!!

The two above were taken at the Erie County Fair, which Evie did great at. She was interested in that big horse, thankfully he didn't get too close. ;) We had a lot of fun with Uncle Matt, Aunt Ally, and Jen and the boys.

Just Evie being her usual cute self. The one on the right is from a morning in service with Nana.

Speaking of "the boys", here's Evie with her pal Micah. It is so fun to see her start to notice other babies and want to interact with them. She loves Emma at our Kingdom Hall too, and when we saw Quinn last weekend she was chatting up a storm. I think she's going to be a social butterfly. :)

This picture just makes me happy whenever I look at it- love that toothless grin!!

Evelyn Clara: 4 months

Miss Evie is four whole months! She is the most amazing baby and we are so happy to have her in our lives. :) We went to the doctor's today, and she weighed in at 13 pounds even and 25.25 inches long. In other words- she's our little string bean. The doctor said she's doing fantastic, and is still ahead in her physical development.

Evie can now roll both ways easily, and does a 360 roll pretty often. She's also inchworming her way towards toys- I'm already starting to think about babyproofing the house! She reaches for toys, and even more fun, she reaches for us!! She responds to both Eric and I all the time- she's so much fun to interact with! This last month has been so much fun- we went swimming, to the fair, the mall, and lots more!

Also, with four months comes lots of work, because missy is all over the place and needs more attention now. :) So I can't talk long. But woohoo- she's still sleeping through the night!!!! So I'll take it. :)

Guess what Evie did?

(obligatory cute baby picture)

She slept through the night last night!!! WOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!

Okay sorry, that was a little extreme. :) I'm just really excited. And yes, I know not to get my hopes up. That tonight, or next week, or next month it could all be ruined and she'll be getting up again. But- let me just enjoy this moment for today okay? :) Because I got eight hours of completely uninterrupted sleep and I feel like I could run a marathon.

Evie went down for bed at her usual bedtime of 8 pm, and for the last two weeks she's been up at 4 am to eat, and then back down until around 8 am. Which really wasn't bad at all. But last night she didn't wake up until 6 am, AND Eric got out of bed first and shushed her back to sleep, and she slept another hour!! So that's 8-7 without eating and minimal work on our part. :) I am so proud of her and I hope that this continues. Because I feel like a million bucks!!

Five Years Going Strong

 Well this is a little late, but our fifth wedding anniversary was the 13th of August- our FIFTH anniversary!!! Time has just flown by (I swear I've said that a million times on this blog already) but this last year has been an especially exciting and crazy one for Eric and I. A year ago, I had just found out I was pregnant, and we told my parents, Allison and Matt, and Mike and Tab at our anniversary dinner that weekend. Now here we are a year later with a beautiful baby girl!
Eric and I went out for a fancy dinner at EB Green's on Friday- the filet mignon was delicious. :) Saturday we just relaxed and spent time as a family. Sunday we had our usual family anniversary dinner, complete with some very sweet presents from the fam. Five years is wood- so mom and dad got us a cute cedar bird feeder for our deck, and Matt and Ally got us this really cool customized vase wrapped in birch bark with our initials "carved" in it. And Evie got to open a present for the first time! :) She was really cute with the tissue paper, which was pretty much the best part for her. But the dress mom picked is adorable (which you don't get to see in the video because the batteries died- sorry!).

In da krib

Good morning Evie!

Sorry about the silly post title- inside family joke. ;) Well, we transitioned Evie to her crib this weekend- she did so well!! It went a lot smoother than I expected it to. She wasn't up every hour, she didn't cry or flip out- she took it all in stride. Friday and Saturday night she went to bed a little later than usual, so she ended up only waking once, which was a welcome change. Last night she was up twice, which is is pretty much where we've been at (excluding the horrible last two weeks we've had where she was up 3-4 times a night). I was honestly hoping that moving her to her own room would encourage sleeping through the night- a lot of people had told me that their baby slept through the night their first night in the crib! While that wasn't the case for us, I'm glad it wasn't a traumatizing experience- for either of us. ;)

I will admit that I took it a little harder than I expected though. We've always known Evie would sleep in her own room, and I actually anticipated that we'd move her sooner. But with her getting up so often at night, I was too lazy to have to get out of bed to comfort/feed her. Eric and I are ready to have our room back, and we know that it's the right thing for all of us, but the first night I hardly slept! I was worrying about her being alone, about her sleeping, about how this was just another sign that my baby girl is growing up!! :( It was strange not to have her next to my bed. I missed her.

But, ultimately we'll all sleep better, and I know it's the right thing for us. Now, to start sleeping through the night. Mommy's ready for that milestone any day now Evie!! ;)

Bathing Beauty

Just a little peak at the fun we've been having in the kiddie pool given to us by our neighbors. Evie loves bath time, so the pool has also been a hit! She mostly enjoys staring at the water... a lot. :)

P.S. In case you're wondering, the Bumbo works great in the pool- but it floats just a little depending on how heavy your kid is, so keep an eye on em. ;)

Evelyn Clara: 3 months

Evie is three whole months today- time is flying by! She is growing up so fast, I can't believe how different she is already. Evie smiles all the time now, especially for people she knows. Grandpa, Nana, Aunt Allison, and Jen can always get a smile out of her- and of course Mommy and Daddy! She also is cooing and making lots of noises, although within the last week or so this has lessened- because she has discovered her hands and they are CONSTANTLY in her mouth. :) It was actually hard to get a photo with her hands away from her face.

I suspect she might be teething because of the drooling, hand chomping, and occasional fussiness, and I'm so not ready!! Thankfully (or maybe not) it could be a while until she actually cuts a tooth, but I just can't believe we've started already. Overall though she's a really happy baby. We've gotten onto a good schedule, especially when we're at home, of eating every 3 hours, and 3 solid naps a day of about 1-2 hours. Of course going out sometimes messes things up, but she's pretty flexible and is really easy to put down for a nap as long as I catch her before she gets too tired.

Evie loves tummy time now that she's mastered rolling from back to belly, I will often set her on her play mat, walk away to do something, and come back to find her on her belly about to knock over the arch of toys above her. :) Eric's decided her favorite colors right now are yellow and orange, since she seems to get more excited for toys and other things those colors. She is a wonderful baby and we feel blessed (and spoiled!) to have her.

Tummy time with Daddy

Evie is a long and lean baby, but Daddy caught this hilarious face that makes her look like a chunker!! :)