Sky Zone Fun

A winter activity to get some energy out- jumping around at an indoor trampoline park! :)

Evelyn Clara: 22 months

So I'm a couple days behind, sorry friends. But Miss Evie is 22 months old now, and living it up toddler style. ;) It's the end of February, and you know how everyone in Western New York gets by now- we are SO SICK OF WINTER!!!! It's such a hassle to go anywhere, but we are tired of being in the house so much. So I'm trying to be creative and come up with fun things for Evie and I to do around the house. And still get out and do playdates and fun things occasionally.

 We've started doing a lot of crafty things, which I love and so does Evie. Her most favorite activity right now is Play Doh, she asks for it every single day. We started out with some homemade stuff, a plastic knife and some cups- and now we have a whole box full of molding toys, cookie cutters, rolling pins, etc. and some of the real Play Doh because she enjoys it so much. When I play with her, she wants me to roll all of the Play Doh into different size balls, and then she puts them in various cups and dumps them out and moves them around and lines them up. She also likes to do the cookie cutters, and use the plastic scissors to cut up Play Doh ropes that I make for her. But the greatest part about Play Doh is that she plays it by herself too!! So nice for mommy to make dinner or clean the kitchen. :)

We've also gotten into painting lately- so far we've done regular paint with brushes, shaving cream and food coloring in the bathtub, and shaving cream mixed with regular paint on paper. I've noticed that Evie doesn't like to get paint on her hands right now- any little bit that touches her skin she's asking for me to get it off immediately. Such a girl. ;) But she get's into the painting quite a bit, it's fun to see her mix the colors and get creative.

And of course she still loves to color- particularly with the Color Wonder markers right now. Those are working amazingly for meetings, she's been so good lately!!! For much of the meeting, she is content to sit in her seat or on my lap, and color in a coloring book with those markers. Sometimes we do crayons too, but the markers hold her interest for longer at this point. I made her a book with laminated pictures to color and got those dry erase crayons, but she didn't take to them the first time I brought them out. We'll try again at the assembly in a couple weeks.

Other fun activities Evie enjoys right now: playing with friends, taking care of her baby dolls, cooking in her play kitchen, helping mommy cook in the real kitchen, watching Fresh Beat Band, and jumping on our new sectional couch. Or anything else that she can jump on. She really likes to jump these days. ;)
Hopefully the weather starts to warm up soon, I can't wait to go to the park again and get out for walks. I think there will be such a difference between last year and this year for Evie at the park, she'll play so differently now! They grow up so fast, it's amazing to watch. :)

A Letter to Evie

Dear Future Evie,
I just need for you to know something about yourself these days, because sometime down the road things might be different. You see these days- at age 21 months- you love broccoli. And I mean you REALLY love it. :) I might even say that aside from yogurt, it might be your favorite food!! You get so excited when you see me cooking it, and you eat it right up. When it's on your plate, you eat all the broccoli first- and then ask for more without touching the rest of your food. Someday, you might not like broccoli, so I just needed to document the fact that you love it right now. Other vegetables that you eat readily include carrots, edamame, green beans, and lettuce. Just in case sometime down the road you claim that you hate them! ;)
Love, Mama

Evelyn Clara: 21 months

21 months.... it's a hilarious age. :) Evie is becoming more and more "toddler" every day, having opinions and taking a stand whenever she can. She's bigger and braver and stronger- she's definitely not a baby anymore. And yet- thank goodness!- she still loves to cuddle and snuggle and remind me that she's my little girl. :)

It's wintertime and it's a cold one, so we're doing our best to find fun things to do while staying warm inside (see here for some unique toddler entertainment). We've been to the Science Museum, library story time, playdates, and just yesterday we went to Bounce Magic- so much fun!! This was the first time I really saw how big and brave Evie has gotten. They had this huge steep slide that even I felt a little nervous about going down when I was perched at the top- and Evie insisted on going alone and laughed the whole way down. :) And then did it six more times! I was so impressed and proud. 

Wheeee!!

Evie hasn't started talking a whole lot more, but she's definitely adding words- you can see a list a couple posts down. One thing that I've definitely noticed a change in is her babbling. She talks nearly all day now, babbling on and on about who knows what, using different tones just like she's having a conversation. The pediatrician said at our 18 month visit that this is really good for her, because her brain is figuring out how to talk, even if she's not using words yet.

First ride in a sled... it didn't last long!

Some favorites of Evie's this month include: her Baby Einsteins First Words book (we read it multiple times every day!), her baby dolls, throwing balls, coloring, helping mommy clean, being chased, the TV shows Octonauts and Fresh Beat Band (she took a break from watching them for awhile, but they're back!), and giving hugs.

Evie loving her babies

Something I've really started to notice in Evie lately is her sense of humor. Of course she's always been happy and she laughed a lot, but it seems like things are actually funny to her now, and she also does things to make us laugh or because she thinks it's funny. She makes faces at me (my favorite is the side eye), and then will crack up laughing. :) She's also really into daddy making silly noises for her- he can make her laugh like no one else!

Being a silly goose- she did this all by herself after a bath one night!

Like I mentioned, Miss Evie is a girl with opinions now. One of these opinions is that shopping carts are akin to jail and it takes a battle to get her to sit in them. So thank goodness for Wegmans having these ridiculous shopping carts with cars on the front- we started using them a couple weeks ago and it's like magic! I used to have to feed her snacks the entire trip to keep her in the seat, now she just kicks back in the car and I don't hear a peep from her. :) They are incredibly awkward to push around the aisles (I've definitely bumped into a few displays lately), but if it keeps our trips peaceful I'll take it! Now to petition every other store to get these carts...

Cheesy "cheese" face

It's been a busy month at home for Mom and Dad with both car and house issues coming up, but thankfully Evie's none the wiser and she's had a great time. :) We also had a big dress up party for all of our friends this month, but I'm still waiting on some photos from parents before I post about it, so here's Evie playing with the train table at Barnes & Noble instead. 22 months here we come!

Bounce Magic Fun

Evie having a blast in the obstacle course 

Evie and Eli being such brave big kids going down the big slide by themselves!!

Evie's Vocabulary

This is kind of more for me than anything else, I just want to keep a list of all the words that Evie says these days. Lately she's gotten a lot better at repeating us, it's so exciting to hear her say new things! :) Of course not everything is the "real" word, but if it's something that she says consistently, I'm counting it, and I'll list her version of the word if it's different.

Hi
Hello- "Hewwo"
Bye
Mama
Daddy
Nana
Papa
Ally- "Ah-ee"
Emma- "Memma"
Henry- "Hen-ee"
Elmo- "Melmo"
Fresh Beat Band- "Bee"
More
Juice- "Joo"
Apple
Cheese
Up- "Pa"
Down
No- "Mo"
Poo Poo
Pee Pee
Diaper- "Dye"
Baby
Book
Boots- "Boo"
Boo Boo
Hat
Shoe
Dog
Woof
Car- "Ca"
Phone- "Wee" (I don't know where this came from, but she consistently calls cell phones "wee"!)

She also does the signs for all done and please. I worry that Evie is behind with her speech, but I try not to compare her to other kids and I know that she'll learn at her own pace. She is learning new words, and her comprehension is great when we're talking to her. She's definitely a smart cookie. :)

Reflections on 366 Days

Click photo to enlarge

Remember a year ago when I decided to take a photo of Evie every day of 2012? Well- I did it! Mostly anyway. ;) Check out Evie's 365 Blog to see a review of the year, one picture at a time.