Ft Myers

Visiting family, sand, sun, swimming, a visit to my favorite little whole-in-the-wall bookstore, a well over due date night with my hubby, drinks and live music at the Holiday Inn... I so needed this weekend!

Pop-Pop and Evan looking at boats on the balcony.

My handsome little guy!

Date Night :)

They loved on Evan so much this weekend!
Dan and I love visiting my Granny and Pop-Pop. They have a condo in Fort Myers Beach right on the beach. We packed up our stuff and headed down on Friday night and stayed until Sunday. It was too short but we cramed all the fun we could. The weather was amazing!

Top Ten

Things I am loving about Evan right now. (It was hard to pick just 10, but here they go...)

10. I love how Evan gets his face right up to his play fish tank. He normally has a pretty short attention span with his toys and moves from toy to toy at lightning speed, but this little tank mesmerises him!

9. I love the way Evan's hair is just bearly long enough to make our first attempt at a mohawk.


8. Evan plays chase! He prefers to be the chaser :)



7. He sits outside reading books with me. This kid seriously loves to be read to.


6. We have nicknamed him "lit'l bulldozer " He knocks over anything in his path and then he will try to climb over it.


5. Evan has his own cabinet now in the kitchen with a random collection of pots and spoons and bowls for him to play with while I cook. I love my little helper!


4. I love how his eyelashes are so long. This kid seriously has some beautiful lashes!


3. Evan finds the best hiding spots in the house. He is going to rock at hide and seek! He is such a cool kid :)


2. Most nights he sleeps in his bed... but there are those nights when he just needs some extra snuggles. He gets in our bed and curls up so close to me and sleeps so peacefully. I love this feeling of watching him sleep. Some people might think this is a bad habit, I think it is heaven!

1. Finally, Evan looks dang cute in a raincoat! I love this smile more then anything!

Halloween Weekend

Early this week we noticed Evan started to get sick and I took him right to the doctors the next day. He was put on meds and I was hoping he would be better by this weekend... but yesterday was his worst day and he had to go to the doctors again and we found out he has a double ear infection and he had to get two shots of strong antibiotics. I felt so bad for my little man. He was acting lethargic, pucking a lot, and did not eat or drink much for almost 2 days. We were worried he would have to admitted to the hospital for dehydration, but thank goodness he started drinking some yesterday afternoon! This morning he is doing a little better and seems to have some of his energy back. We had a lot of fun activities planned for this Halloween weekend, Evan's playgroup is having a Halloween Party and we were going to go to a Fall Festival with Tiffany and her family. But we had to cancel those plans and opt for staying at home and nurse our sick boy back to health. My family is coming to town today. Evan will get to see his Great Granny, Great Pop-Pop and crazy GAB (Great Aunt Barb)! Everyone is coming over to my house tomorrow for some good 'ol fall fun! We are making pumpkin bread with pecan butter, carving our pumpkin, and making home-made carmel apples in the crock pot with all the toppings. If Evan is feeling a little better we will try to take him to a few of our neighbors houses to go trick-or-treating. Dan, Evan and I are all dressing up as pirates this year! Happy Halloween weekend everyone!

Evan Update

Evan is so full of life and Dan and I are loving this watching him explore and experience all these new things. He is crawling all around faster and going further each day. We recently took Evan to Clearwater beach to see the sun set with some good friends. This was only the second time Evan had been to the beach. The first time was when he was just four months old. As we were walking down the beach to the shore I caught Evan with this sweet, shy little smile on his face. When I put him in the sand he started crawling around with his best buddy, Joshua. He is teething a lot, so his hands are in his mouth all the time now. Which is usually fine, expect at the beach... he ended up eating a ton of sand! But he didn't even seem to mind :)

Evan is starting level 3 at Gymboree next week. His teacher approached me and felt Evan was ready to move up to the next class. We tried the level 3 class about a month ago but he was too overwhelmed. Now since being back in level 2 a few more week he has gained a lot more confidence, so I think his is ready now!

Evan loves standing by the front door window waiting for his da-da to get home from work. It is so stinkin' cute!!

Ready for Fall

I spent last weekend getting Fall/Halloween decorations out of the garage and decorating our house for fall. I love bring out the pumpkin candy dishes, spiced candles, and hanging friendly skeletons on our doors. When Dan and I were at the mall we could not resist buying some of this amazing pumpkin bread with pecan butter with from William Sonoma that we sampled. I can't wait to make it for my family. Just might become a new family tradition :) I am also looking forward to picking out Halloween costumes and planning trips to pumpkin patches and fall festivals. I sure do love this time of year!

September

This month has been busy, busy and has given us a lot to celebrate! Dan joined a softball leage at work and Evan and I have enjoyed going to the games to cheer him on. Dan's friend Steve came into town for a visit at the beginning of the month. While he was here we had a party at our house for the USF game. We also celebrated Grandparents Day. My sister turned 26 on the 14th and my parents celebrate their anniversary on the 23rd. Rachel's boyfriend, Jess found out he passed the FL Bar and Rachel passed the Ethics Exam, Wahoo! Dan and I took Evan to the FL Aquarium and spray park. Plus all the playgroups, gymboree classes and playdates!! As Rachel says "Evan has a better social life then anyone!" And the month is not over yet... :)

Evan is doing great! He is busy crawling and exploring and he wants to pull himself up on everything. At the end of the month Evan will be getting braces for his ankles. Since he is spending more and more time standing this will help with ankle strength and alignment. Today Evan's Early Interventionist, Ms. Star brought over a tunnel for Evan to play with. It took so convincing but eventually he went through :) This is such a fun stage!

Yay Evan!

I finally got a couple good crawling videos... The first one is one of the first times he crawled. He loves crawling towards the Wii Fitness board :)



The second video is one I took later that week.



Evan has not been sick in such a long time, but our luck ran out this week and Evan caught a cold. When Evan gets sick he REALLY gets sick and he does not bounce back quickly. He has been very clingy and winy but we are hoping the medicine starts working soon and he can be back to his happy self soon! Even though he is under the weather he continues to amaze us. Today he stood in his crib for the first time!! Dan saw him this morning and he did it again for me this afternoon :) I can't believe all the new things he is doing in just 2 weeks. Dan ran and got the camera so I could get a picture of him standing up... the picture is not the best since he is sick and screaming for us to come get him. Not exactly the way I envisioned the first picture of him standing but... I will take what I can :) Poor little guy did not understand why we were so happy and snapping pictures. He just wanted OUT of his crib!!


Practicing trying to standing... :)


Update on baby proofing: Evan tried to pull himself up on one of our bar stools and knocked it over... scared me to death! Thank goodness he was not hurt. So for now, the bar stools are going in the garage.

Moving and Grooving

Here are a few pictures of Evan having fun
exploring and playing around the house!

Exciting New Milestones!

These last few weeks Evan has became our curious little monkey AND has started to crawl. Dan and I are beaming with pride and excitement! Evan is exploring our house and touching everything he can get his hands on... baby proofing, here we come! When Evan started to crawl I was so hesitant to say he was crawling out loud because I did not want to jinx it. But his physical therapist witnessed it herself last Friday and gave us the go ahead to say he is officially crawling!! The first toy he crawled to was his play drum that my friend Margaret got for him. I love how he now has the freedom to go where he wants to go. It is fun to see what he is interested in. The other day he made his way down the hall and headed straight for the bathroom. Another favorite place to explore is our bedroom.

He is also starting to show the signs of wanting to pull up on things like the coffee table, toy box, and window seals.



We have been spending a lot of time outside letting Evan play at his water table.



I have not been successful at getting a video of Evan crawling... he does not crawl for long stretches yet. Hopefully I can catch him in the act soon :)

Painting With Pudding

Evan did his first art project this morning! Miss Star comes over on Wednesday mornings to work with Evan. This morning she had a great idea to try painting with pudding... kind of like finger painting, but perfectly okay and yummy if some gets in his month! I was not sure how he would like this project. He usually is not a fan of getting his hands messy, but he did really well!! Since this art project is not one I can save... I took a picture for his baby book :)